GMC Jam Voting GMC Jam 36 Voting Topic

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GameDevDan

Former Jam Host
Moderator
GMC Elder


Get the Games:

DOWNLOAD ZIP (276MB)



Voting Deadline
March 16th, 12:00 UTC


  • As soon as the Jam ends on March 2nd at 12:00 UTC, a zip folder of the games will be created and posted in the voting topic so that players can download all the entries at once if they wish.​
  • Voters will then have around 2 weeks to play and rank the games and voting will close on March 16th at 12:00 UTC.​
  • Any member of the GMC can vote, even if they didn't enter the jam. You cannot vote for your own entry.​
  • Votes shall be posted in a single post in the voting topic. You may create a post and continue to edit it as you review more games, do not create more than one post for your votes.​
  • Voters are encouraged to rank as many games as possible, and their final votes must include at least their top 3 games.​
  • The top 3 votes must also be accompanied by a short review of why you liked the game and voted for it (any beyond the top 3 do not need a review, but it is nice to have).​
  • Voters can also vote for the best game in each of the following (optional) categories: Best use of theme, best concept, best presentation (gfx/sound) and best devlog (as written in the games topic).​
Voting Template
(optional but helpful)

XYZ'S REVIEWS AND VOTES

1st Place - Game Name by Author Name
I voted for this game because...

2nd Place - Game Name by Author Name
I voted for this game because...

3rd Place - Game Name by Author Name
I voted for this game because...

Best Ofs
Best use of theme: game name by author name
Best concept: game name by author name
Best presentation: game name by author name
Best devlog: author name

Full Ranking
1. game name by author name
2. game name by author name
3. game name by author name
4. game name by author name
5. game name by author name
6.... etc.
That's all you need to know!
Get playing and voting and enjoy those jam games :)


Boring technical info about how the votes are counted: Entries receive points based on where each voter ranked them, following the formula 1/(rank+1). So if a voter puts a game 1st, it gets 0.5 points. If a voter puts a game 6th, it gets ~0.143 points. These are all added up by the Jam Host to find the overall rank for each game.
 
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ceaselessly

Member
Didn't get a chance to stream or record myself playing these games, but I have finished! Overall, great work everyone. I really enjoyed playing these games, and seeing all of the different ways everyone interpreted the theme.

Reviews

Top 3:

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
wow! this was really good. with a little more polish on the graphics and text this could be a ship-ready game, probably with some more levels too. the mechanics are great, the puzzles are genuinely challenging, and i found myself wanting more when it was over. i think out of all the entries this one found the best balance between adhering to the theme and making fun gameplay that wasn't hindered by everything costing something. also, the tech support convention for the tutorial text made me giggle, as i have survived working in tech support.:p great work!

Debtman by Käsityökerho
progress was 7, debt was $16,705. very fun shoot-em-up. i enjoyed it a lot. even quitting the game had a cost (time), so that was a fun touch. i would have liked to have heard some music, but maybe that wouldn't have fit with the 1-bit vibe. nice amoutn of polish, and fun game.

Summer King by cat, var, let
this is a lovely game. i'd really like to see it developed out fully. the concept is great, the atmosphere peaceful, and the puzzles challenging. only four levels, but with more time to develop, this could be a great game.

Best ofs:

Best use of THEME: Debtman by Käsityökerho
Best Concept: H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
Best Presentation: Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
Best Story: H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
Best Devlog: The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário

Full ranking:

  1. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  2. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  3. Summer King by cat, var, let
  4. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  5. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  6. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  7. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  8. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  9. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  10. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  11. May 31 by The M
  12. Otherside by Gizmo199
  13. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  14. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
  15. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  16. Coin Drop by Toque
  17. Pay the Price by KPJ
  18. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  19. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  20. GMCity by Lukan
  21. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  22. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  23. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
  24. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
  25. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  26. Breach by Lolslayer

Comments:

A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba

nice amount of polish, loved the graphics. became repetitive pretty quickly, though. would love to see more types of encounters and interactions!

Banana quest by 2Dspessman

nice little twist on the theme, though i would have liked to have seen more clues about the twist within the game itself. interesting control mechanic.

Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha

got stuck in an infinite cycle of dying before i could reach the gun -- the zombies should reset to their initial spawn point when you die. other than that, perfectly fine platform shooter. nothing too special, and didn't incorporat the theme much. i also wish the jump button had been W instead of spacebar -- would have felt more intuitive. good effort!

Breach by Lolslayer

unfortunately, this game won't run on my pc.

Coin Drop by Toque

interesting little game, definitely one of the most unique takes on the theme. very short, so not a whole ton to comment on. however, i wish i didn't get an auto game over when i used my last coin -- there was once on the bat level when i would have won with my last coin, but the room reset before it hit the last bat.

Cost Puzzle by Bart

short and simple. nice use of the theme. had you had more time, i would have liked to see more levels with other stuff that mucks with your cost calculations.

Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18

funny little shmup. i have a personal distaste for bullet hells, but i tried not to let my bias influence my rating. overall, a solid prototype of a chaotic game with a good sense of humor. if you were interested in continuing to work on it, i'd defnitely encourage you to do so.

Date by Siolfor the Jackal

cute little game. the gameplay wasn't much to speak of, but the art was lovely, and the twist at the end made me chuckle. bonus points for being inclusive in the types of characters that can be paired together.

Debtman by Käsityökerho

progress was 7, debt was $16,705. very fun shoot-em-up. i enjoyed it a lot. even quitting the game had a cost (time), so that was a fun touch. i would have liked to have heard some music, but maybe that wouldn't have fit with the 1-bit vibe. nice amoutn of polish, and fun game.

Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0

interesting idea, but the action moved too slowly for me to get invested. the elevator was also pretty glitchy, resulting in me getting stuck inside and having to restart the game, or glitching the elevator all the way to street level and being able to walk up and down the floors.

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel

very cute sprites -- would love to see what else you do with them! unfortunately, i fell through the floor a few times while playing, and wasn't able to finish the game.

GMCity by Lukan

cool idea (love sim city games) but lacking in execution. there isn't much to do, and so i only played for a few minutes. nice attempt at something ambitious!

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies

wow! this was really good. with a little more polish on the graphics and text this could be a ship-ready game, probably with some more levels too. the mechanics are great, the puzzles are genuinely challenging, and i found myself wanting more when it was over. i think out of all the entries this one found the best balance between adhering to the theme and making fun gameplay that wasn't hindered by everything costing something. also, the tech support convention for the tutorial text made me giggle, as i have survived working in tech support.:p great work!

Humpty by sp202, Solistix

i don't like when games force me to read a readme and then start the readme by qualifying its quality. take pride in your work, even if it isn't up to your standards! you still made something, and that's great!

that said, the turn-based tactics idea is a good one, but i don't really see it being executed with any cohesion here. even after reading the readme, i couldn't quite get the hang of what the gameplay loop was supposed to be. when i died, i could still move around and interact with the world, and my hearts just animated instead of drawing to my health.

the models are interesting, and i'd like to see what else you can do with this visual style!

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB

cute little game. fun characters. would have liked more indications of what i'm supposed to do.

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s

funny idea, and nicely executed battle system. RPGs are kind of inherently suited to this theme, now that i think of it.

May 31 by The M

nice start for a tower defense style game. the presentation was very nice, with all the diferent modules. would have liked the ability to adjust unit placements after buying them initially -- ended up accidentally wasting some money because i double clicked a barricade before dragging it out, for example. nice work overall!

McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

received an error message when the ghost got me:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_player:


draw_text_ext argument 1 incorrect type (string) expecting a Number (YYGF)
at gml_Script_draw_hud
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Script_draw_hud (line -1)
gml_Object_obj_player_Draw_64

after restarting (and making sure the ghost didn't get me this time) i was able to play it without any trouble. the graphics were nice, but the gameplay was very slow -- especially the text. i wished for a way to skip text boxes, especially when i accidentally interacted with an object more than once.


My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media

this one made me giggle. nice use of the theme using only two mechanis: moving and standing still! i wished there would have been auto-death if i got stuck on a spike, rather than having my pain locked to max and having to wait for the heat to fill up. also, for a game with such high resolution, starting in full screen and scaling down in windowed mode would have looked better. fun concept, and definitely a challenge to get the hang of.

Otherside by Gizmo199

nice and very well-polished game. didn't have much to do with the theme, besides collecting coins. the soccer match was too unwieldy -- AI was an expert at it, but the physics were difficult to control as a player.

Pay the Price by KPJ

nice platform shooter. although, i have to be nitpicky and say not EVERY action had a cost: moving around didn't seem to deplete my $$$. ;)

nice music, cool visual style. might be a fun game to expand.

Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit

neat little game. i like the concept of phase shifting as a gameplay mechanic, so it would be cool to see it expanded into a fuller game. you might consider adding a little bit of a buffer to the phase shifting -- sometimes i died because i shifted just a pixel too early, which made for a lot of restarts. i also died a few times right off the bat because i didn't see the tutorial text until after failing a few times right off the bat. catchy music.

Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero

this was a fun little game. kind of challenging with how quickly the requests piled up. if there had been a smoother difficulty curve -- starting with orders of only one or two items, for example -- i think it would have been more fun and easier to get into. loved the sprites, and the bossa nova music was a great choice.

Summer King by cat, var, let

this is a lovely game. i'd really like to see it developed out fully. the concept is great, the atmosphere peaceful, and the puzzles challenging. only four levels, but with more time to develop, this could be a great game.

The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário

interesting concept. i always like seeing text based games in jams. i would have liked a few more visual indications, like different text colors, that i was talking to different people. it took me a few screens to realize there were two different characters. i played a few times and finally got a positive score. :p

Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox

i liked the idea of this game more than i liked the game itself. i found myself randomly clicking until different results happened, rather than being able to form any cohesive strategy.
 
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E

Endercurse

Guest
If you want to know why my review is so.. short beyond the first ranking, here's a little disclaimer:
I'm a very critical person, that rarely sees the positives in things, which hates giving or receiving disingenuous compliments.
The reason I kept my written reviews to a bare minimum, is because I literally would have unnecessarily bashed about 80% of the entries for one stupid thing or another.
And I wouldn't have known anything good to write for compensation.
Only my top pick excited me enough to be able to genuinly praise it to write something positive.
I'm sorry for the lack of words. Please don't take it as personal offense.

Top 3:

Debtman by Käsityökerho
Sometimes it isn't about high-effort, stunning visuals, sometimes it isn't about the most creative, bright idea...
Sometimes, no, more often than not, it's just about taking an idea and polishing it up until it will make itself shine.
Debtman is dumb simple. Straightforward. Maybe even somewhat lazy.

But taking this jam's idea with this more-than-a-grain of salt, just for the sake of comedy was absolutely brilliant.
Get endebted $1000 just to play the game? Was a good way to get me to crack that first smile, grabbing my attention.
Game is repetitive by design, due to jam constraints? Make enemies swarm you so hard you better learn how to kite them properly, always having to find a new path to avoid them.
Game gets to the point you cant keep up anymore? Just chill out in the early stages of your next run, you'll get that sweet highscore eventually.
What, the game is literally made of purely black and white pixels? Well, add those fluent animations and easily recognizable shapes to get great visual clarity for all the chaos on the screen.

Oh and the sound effects. The gun sounds are SO. DAMN. SATISFYING!
You think you would stop shooting because all the enemies are dead? Well that's less debt for your highscore! Guns blazing all the way, or bust it.
Combine all of those elements and you get a very coherent game that just feels right.
Like the author said, as well as it being the main principle in game design for Nintendo, out of all companies:
"Fun first"

And boy did I have fun.
I recommended demand you to play this with "Running in the 90's" playing through YouTube.

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
Very well done puzzle game.
Having movement locked like the way it is, plus having to grab coins to unlock more makes this game take this spot for me.
Would love to see a couple more levels. Yummy brain food.

Otherside by Gizmo199
The chilling atmosphere and the buildup to the final section of the game is really well done.
Love the characters as well: Simple, straightforward, but with a good amount of personality.
Loved the concept, an extended version would be right up my alley.

Best ofs:

Best use of THEME: Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
Best Concept: H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
Best Presentation: Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
Best Story: Otherside by Gizmo199

Full ranking:
  1. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  2. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  3. Otherside by Gizmo199
  4. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  5. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  6. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  7. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  8. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  9. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
  10. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  11. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  12. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  13. Coin Drop by Toque
  14. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  15. Pay the Price by KPJ
  16. May 31 by The M
  17. Summer King by cat, var, let
  18. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  19. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  20. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
  21. Breach by Lolslayer
  22. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  23. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  24. GMCity by Lukan
  25. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  26. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário (sorry)

It was a lot of fun participating.
Thank you all for the friendly chatting in the discord as well. ^^
 
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D

Deleted member 45063

Guest
Reviews

Top 3:

Otherside by Gizmo199
- Wow, quite a nice little RPG game.
- Awesome graphics and music.
- Nice gameplay, really enjoyed doing all those odd jobs
- Ending is quite difficult but rewardng.
- Took me waay too long to beat the kid playing soccer
- Unfortunately could have a better written English in some parts

:: Awesome game, would love to see it being taken post jam.

Debtman by Käsityökerho
- Addictive AF.
- Nice minimalistic graphics
- Nice sounds
- Hectic gameplay always keeping you on your toes
- Very well made game
- Interesting take on the theme

:: An extremely good game as is.

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
- Cute game
- Nice sounds
- Nice world
- Different characters that add to the game atmosphere
- Interesting concept
- Nice use of theme
- Super colorful and light game

:: Pretty solid entry that I would like to see expanded upon.

Best ofs:

Best use of THEME: My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
Best Concept: Debtman by Käsityökerho
Best Presentation: Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
Best Story: Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
Best Devlog: H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies

Full ranking:

  1. Otherside by Gizmo199
  2. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  3. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  4. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  5. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  6. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  7. Summer King by cat, var, let
  8. May 31 by The M
  9. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  10. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  11. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  12. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  13. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  14. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  15. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  16. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
  17. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  18. Pay the Price by KPJ
  19. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  20. Coin Drop by Toque
  21. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  22. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  23. GMCity by Lukan
  24. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  25. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
  26. Breach by Lolslayer

Comments:

A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba

- Nice graphics, really like how the color changes as you get more indebted
- Nice music
- Seems quite complex for someone that is not good at strategy games, only managed to get past the first boss but by then I already had less than 100 gold.

:: For someone that enjoys the genre it seems like a very solid entry.

Banana quest by 2Dspessman

- You really need to complete the game to understand it, otherwise it makes no sense
- Controls require too much precision (even with my Razer on maximum precision it was difficult at points)
- Nice use of off-screen movement
- Fun and challenging to do properly

:: Nice game to play, could do with a bit more polish and an improved control scheme.

Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha

- Multi language, I think that is the first time I see it in a Jam entry!
- Went off screen, couldn't return, energy kept depleting, died. Respawned, off screen, rinse repeat. Was that the end of the game?
- For some reason takes a huge amount of time to startup the executable.
- Couldn't figure out what the currency was for.
- Going to disregard the Minecraft zombie sound :p
- Theme wise, you have energy and ammo.
- Graphics were quite nice, and the effects as well. Also enjoyed the whole recoil of the gun as well.

:: If more content is added I think this could be a very entertaining game, as it is it's quite easy to finish.

Breach by Lolslayer

Unfortunately couldn't play, all I saw was the crosshairs and black (when I fired I saw the bullets). Most likely a problem with my graphics card being incompatible or something.

Coin Drop by Toque

- Simple mechanics, interesting usage of the theme
- I do need to complain that as soon as you use your last coin you lose, regardless of whether that coin would make you win the level or not, which is highly frutrating.

:: With a more refined set of levels and graphics I think it could be an interesting puzzle game.

Cost Puzzle by Bart

- Consider changing the background, text is very hard to read
- Quite simple
- Unfortunately quite short

:: Can be further expanded, but as it is there is not much to dive into unfortunately

Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18

- Nice starting voiceover
- Intersting combinations of market fluctuations and bullet hell
- Shark whatever fleet is way too powerfull. Probably needs a really big fleet to destroy but I didn't feel like investing that much.
- Nice sounds and music.
- I do feel like the ships moved a bit too slow for a bullet hell.

:: With a bit more polish in the market / economical side of it and more levels and such can be a quite interesting game.

Date by Siolfor the Jackal

- Really nice graphics and music
- Relaxing game
- Not much to it but walking around making errands unfortunately
- Game ending is pretty good
- Nice usage of the theme I would say.
- Really liked to see some GMC characters in there!

:: Nice short game, not sure it can be expended more though.

Debtman by Käsityökerho

- Addictive AF.
- Nice minimalistic graphics
- Nice sounds
- Hectic gameplay always keeping you on your toes
- Very well made game
- Interesting take on the theme

:: An extremely good game as is.

Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0

- Unfortunately I couldn't really play much, the text is so small (other than the initial one that you can zoom in)
- It felt like delivering to the top floors was impossible due to how slow things move and how fast the timer goes
- Didn't really make it to the end

:: I think the game needs to be refined a bit more, but it could be an interesting concept.

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel

- Really nice graphics, I think sounds would really enhance the experience.
- Couldn't win the arena once as I kept falling through the floor to the outside of the screen.

:: Some bugs, but really nice graphical style, would like to try a non-buggy version though.

Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly

- At some point too many enemies start showing up!
- Felt like it was quite easy to misclick outside of the game window, but the game paused which is nice

:: Never thought I could have so much fun protecting a bloody pineapple from being eaten!

GMCity by Lukan

- Couple problems: Window is too small for the popup, you need to move the map to see the popup
- After building the water and power plant no more hints are given so it seems kind of arbitrary from there
- There doesn't seem to be a lot of goal to the game after that initial dialog
- You have a lot of money so you theory you could build a lot from the beginning, but the building mechanics could be improved (e.g. the mouse actually seems off from where the building to build is located)

:: It was a nice idea but I think it would require a bit more refinement to become a good concept.


H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies

- Nice puzzle game, unfortunately could not figure out how to pass level 7.
- Nice music and simplistic but effective graphics

:: Can see a lot of potential in the game (although I didn't play most of the puzzles).

Humpty by sp202, Solistix

- You can continue to play after running out of life, although afterwards it calls you a cheater (nice easter egg perhaps, but until you reach the end if just feels like a bug)
- Game is extremely easy as you can always sacrfica a quarter of a heart to attack an enemy again and not suffer any other damage.
- It would be nice if there was an indicator that the next move wil consume health, especially when you run out of enemies sometimes you don't know if you need to press Enter again so you always do it.
- Theme wise I feel like (although on theme) it doesn't really feel like an out of ordinary mechanic since turn-based games usually already consume the turn on movement (the exrta move for a bit of health does not really seem like an extraordinary usage of the theme).

:: Overall it would be nice to see what the complete original idea would be as the actual submitted version is too short for even getting a taste of the gameplay.

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB

- Cute game
- Nice sounds
- Nice world
- Different characters that add to the game atmosphere
- Interesting concept
- Nice use of theme
- Super colorful and light game

:: Pretty solid entry that I would like to see expanded upon.

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s

- Clicking on a "SOON" wastes a bunch of money, going into negative amounts and then you have to quit the game and restart
- Fun game, interesting means of making money
. Nice music and graphics
- Can become a bit repetitive I think

:: Liked the overall feel to the game and the autosaves

May 31 by The M

My city fell on May 26th :c

- Font is waaaaay to small to read, at least ot a person with bad sight like me (the GMC Jam Player's font is also small).
- Too bad not more units are available.
- Disabling the build area does not work very well as it sometimes either disables areas where I still have troops or that the enemies didn't actually reach.
- Very fun to play, even without any more units.
- Too bad it doesn't have sound.
- Theme wise can't say it is a nice usage since a sort of tower defense game always has costs associated to units.

:: Definitely will look forward to a post jam version as it seems like a very nice game!

McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

- Sound is choppy
- Text is slow to show
- Unforunately there is an error every time I get hit by some flying thing
- The graphics looked nice though

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_player:

draw_text_ext argument 1 incorrect type (string) expecting a Number (YYGF)
at gml_Script_draw_hud
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Script_draw_hud (line -1)
gml_Object_obj_player_Draw_64


My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media

- Really creative use of the theme, reminds me of the twisted genies in a bottle
- Good graphics
- All the yelling is annoying after a bit though
- Movement is difficult to get into but after a while you get the hang of it

:: Would like to see how this mechanic would apply on a longer game

Otherside by Gizmo199

- Wow, quite a nice little RPG game.
- Awesome graphics and music.
- Nice gameplay, really enjoyed doing all those odd jobs
- Ending is quite difficult but rewardng.
- Took me waay too long to beat the kid playing soccer
- Unfortunately could have a better written English in some parts

:: Awesome game, would love to see it being taken post jam.

Pay the Price by KPJ

- I find the font quite hard to read
- Short but fun while it lasts
- Could be expanded upon I believe

:: Would be willing to see a post jam version with a refined set of (more) levels.

Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit

- Nice sounds
- Good concept
- Fun to play
- Nice use of theme
- Background move a bit too fast I think, can be distracting
- Shooting enemies didn't seem to do much unfortunately
- Didn't actually run out of energy so not sure how feasible it is.

:: Good concept, would like to see it expanded upon.

Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero

- Nice light mood and graphics, would just suggest to change the text as it is extremely hard to read!
- Cool concept, unfortunately it does get repetitive after a bit.
- Enjoyed buying things but after a bit I ran into a bug were the carts fell directly into the checkout a few times and then just disappeared altogether, making it impossible to keep playing.

:: Nice base for a cute game, would like to see it further developed.

Summer King by cat, var, let

- Really nice concept
- Relaxing music
- Good graphics
- Too few levels unfortunately.

:: Can easily see this turned into a game with several fun levels.

Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox

- Interesting game, too bad it is short
- You have some flexibility on some choices, others not so much
- Nice graphics and descriptions

:: Would be intrigued to see an expansion of it
 
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Gizmo199

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
Amazing! I loved every minute of this! Creative and well presented! Such a cute little game! Amazing in every way!

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
Such a fun game! Could use a little better graphics but other than that...AMAZING! Loved every minute of it and couldn't stop playing. It just has so much character to it! Great work! :D

Debtman by Käsityökerho
This was just such a fun game to play! For some reason (and it might be designed this way) but I couldn't see a target/aim icon and there was no cursor either so I just kinda had to guess where I was shooting. :/ Awesome graphics, great audio, fun gameplay! Well done!

Best ofs:

Best use of THEME: My Eyes
Best Concept: H.E.X.A.G.O.N.
Best Presentation: Inkletint Island
Best Story: Date
Best Devlog: n/a

Full ranking:

  1. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  2. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  3. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  4. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  5. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  6. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  7. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  8. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  9. Pay the Price by KPJ
  10. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  11. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  12. GMCity by Lukan
  13. May 31 by The M
  14. Coin Drop by Toque
  15. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  16. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  17. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  18. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  19. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  20. Summer King by cat, var, let
  21. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
  22. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  23. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
  24. Breach by Lolslayer
  25. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  26. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
  27. Otherside by Gizmo199

Comments:

A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba

Not really my cup of tea and I found myself just clicking things more than I did actually reading all of the text. Got stale for me kinda quickly. Also there was no way to escape the game without CTRL ALT DEL that I found. I tried using ESC, END and all of the F keys as well as ENTER and SPACE. Just a heads up. :) Overall I think it worked for the type of game it is, but unfortunately for me personally I don't really enjoy text based games like these. Overall though it had a great presentation and everything was consistent in that reguard so good job! :)

Banana quest by 2Dspessman

Initially playing it through I thought the game was just a "collect" kind of thing which would have been awful. After getting to the ending however this made the game much more difficult. haha. Couldn't beat it (it was just too tedious) but overall that first go around really gave me a good little surprise. :)

Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha

It was okay I suppose. I like the little lego look of the guy. Graphics were too much though. Really hard to look at for an extended period of time. Player got stuck in a wall. Feels choppy.

Breach by Lolslayer

Okay I don't get it. haha. All I got was just a black screen with two blue bars, a target, and I could fire bullets but nothing else. Every once in a while it would fade to red. Am I missing something? Maybe the shaders don't work on my computer but I can't imagine why that would be the case since I use shaders all of the time. Poor ranking for now.

Coin Drop by Toque

Pretty fun! A little on the slow end but I had fun throughout. Would have liked to see more levels! Good job! :)

Cost Puzzle by Bart

Not too much here. Almost just came down to counting the numbers. Would love to have seen more with some added coin advantage and planing out your moves. Overall just not alot here. Good presentation though and calming music.

Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18

Not a terrible game but once I went "bankrupt" the game wouldn't let me continue or exit. A lot of text to read through and I wasn't sure what the little graphs meant above each ship nor did I know what each ship did vs the others really. Not a bad concept, could be a cool little danmaku game but overall missed the mark a bit. I did like the money eyes panda though! He was cool. haha.

Date by Siolfor the Jackal

Lol. Loved it! Great work. Art and animation was really fun. Loved the potato reference. The ending was hilarious. Wasn't expecting it at all! haha. Great work!

Debtman by Käsityökerho

This was just such a fun game to play! For some reason (and it might be designed this way) but I couldn't see a target/aim icon and there was no cursor either so I just kinda had to guess where I was shooting. :/ Awesome graphics, great audio, fun gameplay! Well don!

Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0

Unfortunately I could only play it for a minute before the elevator decided to keep going down into the street, and when I went to go back up it just wouldn't let me out no matter what floor I was on. I liked the kinda oldschool ninja turtle "platformer but free movment" kind of feel but the elevator really messed up and it was unplayable after that. Also the time between knocking and getting to the truck isn't set up very well to be actually achieved in time and I only was able to get a couple of doors before the elevator f-ed up. Overall not a great experience. I really enjoyed the gameplay mechanics that remind me of the sidescrollers of old but everything else seemed to flop. :( sorry guys!

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel

Had fun playing it! The graphics were amazing! The presentation on point! I ended up falling through the level for some reason after getting hit by one of the dinos so I had to restart but overall not a bad entry! :) Also it informs me to "press D on certain platforms to drop through them" but the actual button is S. ;)

Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly

I had fun playing this! Only problem I had with it was using shift to pick up the pinapple. I'm so used to shift being a run key in most games like this that i just kept picking it up and dropping it. haha. Might bave been better with a LMB or F/X/C or something. Overall I had alot of fun playing it. Graphics could definately have used some work. Good job! :)

GMCity by Lukan

Didn't quite get it I guess. I just kinda kept placing stuff and tried to make a cool little city looking layout.

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies

Such a fun game! Could use a little better graphics but other than that...AMAZING! Loved every minute of it and couldn't stop paying. It just has so much character to it! Great work! :D

Humpty by sp202, Solistix

Not much here as the readme suggested. Kinda cool for using some 3d-ish elements I guess, so overall I give it a point for that but everything else is bleh.

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB

Amazing! I loved every minute of this! Creative and well presented! Such a cute little game! Amazing in every way!

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s

Wow! I had a ton of fun playing this! Played for at least 30 minutes. The learning curve is spot on and just overall a very polished experience! Some really creative upgrades and attacks as well. Well done!

May 31 by The M

Pretty fun little tower defense type game! Presentation is a little inconsistent but pretty good overall. Good work!

McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

Error:
___________________________________________
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FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_player:

draw_text_ext argument 1 incorrect type (string) expecting a Number (YYGF)
at gml_Script_draw_hud
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Script_draw_hud (line -1)
gml_Object_obj_player_Draw_64

Once that enemy runs at you this is what pops up. :( Looked cool. Had some fun walking around the little house. Sorry guys.

My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media

This game was super fun for like 5 seconds and then it got SOOOO frustrating! Overall I really awesome entry, but I just couldn't get the hang of it. Would have been nice to have some check points but It just kept throwing me to the begining which was super frustrating. Aweome presentation though and overall I think has the most potential of the games I've played. :)

Otherside by Gizmo199

My game. After playing it since the jam deadline I realize how broken the boss battle kind of is in terms of 'fun' and playing it. Definately need to re-vamp it so that it is more engaging, and less boring. Something to note for the future! :D

Pay the Price by KPJ

Pretty fun little platformer! I liked the theme use alot and it was entertaining. Got a little repetitive towards the end but overall I had alot of fun! :)

Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit

Nice little side scroller. Controls kept confusing me (as in I kept hitting shift for jump and visa versa). Overall not a bad game. Was pretty fun until I kept dying and then it just became frustrating. haha. Good job! Saw the theme a little bit but it was basically irrelevant to the gameplay.

Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero

I enjoyed playing this quite a bit! It got old pretty quick but it was a cute little game and was pretty enjoyable. The cart dropping got annoying as well as having to jump around to get it where I needed it but overall not too shabby! :)

Summer King by cat, var, let

I had absoultely no clue what was going on. I just clicked things. haha. With no clear goals or exactly what is going on I can't bring myself to rank this too high. Just lacked direction. Presentation was good. Story non existent. The vibe was cool and the music made it calming. I guess there was a sense of cost/payment going on but I just didn't know to what degree or how it really worked.

The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário

Interesting little game. Not my style. My biggest issue is that it felt like I was just looping around the same questions over and over again.

Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox

Had some fun seeing the different outcomes. Not so sure how much of a 'game' it was but I was entertained nonetheless! Good presentation! Definately had some character to it! Good job!
 
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JackTheBlindRabbit's Reviews and Votes

Played & reviewed every game and had a blast doing it, aswell as participating in my first game jam ever :)
Great ideas out there, so much creativity... Congratz everyone!
Also, I realized how very hard is it to judge, especially the top 3 x_x
Anyway, here it is:

REVIEWS:
- A Noble's Quest

Tried 3 playthrough but did not succeed to retrieve the king's daughter (sorry dude) ;(

Gameplay is interesting, I found the interface well-designed and intuitive (especially the color changing with the gold quantity).
Kinda liked the portraits sprites but really wasn't fond of the resolution and colors used (it's very subjective but kinda hurted to watch and especially to read).
Use of theme is pretty good, there are plenty of sacrifices and tough choices to make.
Overall it's a cool game, even if it gets repetitive really quick though and I totally suck at talking to enemys apparently :p
Original entry!

- Banana Quest

Did ate loads of bananas :p

Lacks content and didn't understand the use of the theme here though :/
Also, once you figure out that if you leave your mouse on the character he's not jiggling anymore it's really easy.
I liked the player sprite though, very cute!

- Baserisk

Kinda liked the gameplay, even if the gun gets stuck sometimes
Also, I know it's a game jam but I really hated the minecraft sounds to be honest, because it's drawing me out of the game which had some charm to it (liked to parallax background)
I understood the use of the theme (moving cost you energy and you have to manage that) but I don't see the point of money here and there aren't much sacrifice to make.

- Breach

Fired everywhere just to see the insane reflections working and the "false 3D" world moving

Totally dig the gameplay and the look on this one, good job on that!
It feels great and looks very good.

Use of the theme is a little bit feeble though (shooting cost and you have to choose your weapon wisely but that's it)
It does push you to manage your every move but I would expect more sacrifice to do with a theme like that.

- Coin Drop

Threw my money all over the place.

Good use of the theme
Gameplay is well executed
Like the "semi-retro" style and the music.

Feels good overall!

- Cost Puzzle

Feels more like a proof of concept (but hey that's what game jam are for)
Clever but really too short unfortunately :(

- Damakuconomy

Cool dollar-eye panda is cool $_$

Clever use of the theme in a shoot'em'up.
I like the balance between fast paced gameplay and building your fleet in-between.
Could make a really good game!
Also, I totally dig the music.

- Date

From "What a cute little game ^_^" to "OH WAIT WTF o_O" in 1mn

Really loved everything in this one!
It's fun to play, to watch, to hear.
Perfect lenght for a game jam in my opinion.
Love the attention of detail (randomization of the couple & changing menu)
And I laughed my ass off at the end... Can't tell you why you have to play it.
Also great use of the theme.

- Debtman

Loved being taxed for breathing in public.
My progress is 7 and managed to collect $16165 debt.


Very litteral use of the theme but it works very well as expected :p
That's exactly the game I wanted to see in this jam!
Loved everything about it: Gameplay, Art, Sound... Just miss a background music in my opinion
Cool game!

- Delivery Man

Ups man on hormone.

Really cool use of the theme with the karma system.
Concept works well, it's a fun idea!
I don't really like the art but that's a minor detail

- Dino Arena

Really cute platformer, totally dig the look on this one.
Totally miss some music & sound though :(
Litteral use of the theme that works okay.
Can't quick restart after dying though, had to restart the game plenty time

- Everybody wants your pineapple

11/10 will protect my pineapple again.

Insanely fun game in the concept aswell as in the gameplay, really good use of the theme
Loved the art style, music, sound & pineapple of course
Well executed, clever.

- GMC City

Sorry but the interface prevents me to play the game correctly, I can't place anything right ><
Believe me I tried :/

- Hexagon

Beep-Boop

Nice use of the theme, works well
Cool little puzzle game
Lots of levels (25 :eek:) that gets increasingly harder

- Humpty

Best use of show_message : Humpty

Really cool puzzle game!
Yes, yes I did read the readme (even though I tried to cheat :p) and I know you didn't had time to polish it but I would have really liked to see more of it
Fits the theme just right and art is original

- Inkletint Island

0/10 will never go to Hector's Bar again (even if he SAYS he doesn't make the rules)

This one has a particular place in my heart. Could play it for hours.
It feels so good to play and is cute as hell. Game-design is on point.
Loved the music aswell.
Fits the theme perfectly in its own original way in my opinion.
Kept me engaged until the last piece of fruit!

- Mansion Mayhem

Kicking hobbos is my hobbie.

Fun entry, I enjoyed it !
Great example of the risk/reward side of the theme
Totally dig the 70's funky sytle

- May31

Very cool tower defense game.
I could play it for hours.
Gotta say it misses a few sound and some music but I really loved the concept!

- McMurdo

Thanks devs, now I need another pair of pants...

This one striked me in ways other games in this game didn't.
There's an odd feeling to it (and justified!)
Totally loved the graphism
Couldn't judge the use of the theme though, can't get past that creepy monster.
I have to say I find the movement system annoying and the "voice" sound even more.
Also, is it intended that when you die the game crashes? xD

- My Eyes

Felt every bit of pain this guy felt

Very original entry
Liked everything about it
One of the best use of the theme too in my opinion
Made me smile a lot !

- Otherside

Best soccer game ever.

I had a blast, love every bit of it.
A shame the market hasn't been built though.
The world feels alive and art is just a delight to look at
Gameplay is really cool too.
Fits the theme in many ways.
One of the best entry for me.

- Pay the price

Classic use of the theme, some good ideas!
Just one thing that bothered me: turning invisible makes it impossible to play cause player has no idea where the character is :p
Nice little game

- PhaseShifter

Too good but too short !

(Nah just joking; that's our own entry, I'll let you guy decide :D)

- Plungy Mart Panic!

Fun little game, good use of the theme

- Summer King

Clever puzzle game
Kinda hard to see all the blocks though

- The People Pleaser

Fun use of the theme in a "meta" sort of way
I like the idea!

- Worth of A Soul

Is your soul worth 3 paperclip?

Really liked this entry!
Failed to see the different outcomes though :(
Would really like to see more, kudos for the idea.

NOTES:
(To be honest the top 3 order doesn't really matter to me but I know we have to do it for the jam)

1st Place - "Inkletint Island" by TEAM FLOB
I voted for this game because:
I kinda fell in love with it at first glance :D Also, it's a very clever use of the theme.
What made me put it first was the really cool Game-Design.

2nd Place - "My Eyes" by Deadly Serious Media
I voted for this game because:
It fits the theme in a more "special" kind of way (and that's the least to say xD).
Execution of the concept makes the gameplay very enjoyable aswell.

3rd Place - "Otherside" by Gizmo199
I voted for this game because:
It's very much alive and touching.
Gameplay is pleasant and my heart goes for the artistic direction.

Best Ofs
Best use of theme: "My Eyes" by Deadly Serious Media
Best concept: "Worth of a Soul" by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
Best presentation: "Date" by Siolfor the Jackal
Best devlog:

Full Ranking
(kinda random after top 10)
1. Inkletint Island
2. My Eyes
3. Otherside
4. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple
5. Date
6. Worth of a Soul
7. Debtman
8. A Noble's Quest
9. McMurdo
10. May31
11. Coin Drop
12. Breach
13. Mansion Mayhem
14. Humpty
15. Hexagon
16. Dino Arena
17. Damakunomy
18. Delivery Man
19. Plungy Mart Panic!
20. Pay the Price
21. The People Pleaser
22. Cost Puzzle
23. Summer King
24. GMCity
 
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Toque

Member
Toque and son’s amazing.


1)Otherside ....... wonderful adventure
2)inkletint ....... fun adventure
3)McMurdo ........ Mysterious adventure

Best use of theme ..... mansion mayhem
Best Concept ....... Plunger mart panic
Best Presentation ...... A noble Quest
Best story ........ Summer king

RANKINGS and SPANKINGS

Mansion Mayham Team 70’s
Turn basted beat em up. Story was ok. Fits the theme. Good music. A bit repetitive and not a huge fan of turn basted games. But its not bad. I liked beating up people that looked like my neighbours. Art was good. Good jam game.



Hexagon Mercerenies
I really liked this game. Guide a robot to the console. My son liked playing it. A puzzler. Good level design. Pretty good.
Incorporated the theme. We liked up. One of our favourites so far.





Banana Quest 2DSpressman
Collecting bananas. It was a bit glitchy on my computer. Getting it to run. But we got it to work after a couple tries. Simple graphics but they are ok.
It was a fun little game. Some level design went into it. Its ok.





My Eyes Deadly serious Media
Text was a bit small. music was good. Interesting art. interesting game. Found it hard to first. Like the laser eyes. Maybe a bit too hard. Could start easier and ramp up the difficulty. It was fun.





Mcmurdo sheep dragon Studios
So adventure type of game. Really cool. Nod to the artist. The beep noise was annoying. Exploring was great. I get the theme a bit abstract but I like that. One of our favourites. Game crashes when we died.




Worth of a Soul Shadow Lancer Cowsox
Interesting art. Interesting concept. I like the theme. Different from a typical trading game. Theme I get. It was interesting. We liked it but didnt find it terribly fun.




Inkletint Island Team Flob
Great part. Collecting the fruit. Map was great. Good story. Fun looking around. Story. We liked it.





May31 The M
Tower defence. Fun. Good theme. Nothing original. But still pretty good. We had fun playing this one. One of our favourites so far. Great stuff.





Delivery Man Xerobotxero
We like this game. I like elevator game. Music was good. We found the elevator would be out of sync sometimes. So you couldn’t get off the floors some games. It was different. I didnt hate it. Wish it worked better. Good concept.



The people pleaser Rui Rosario
Agent mission. Choose your story style of game. A bit repetitive. Fine entry. Will need another play to rank it. Played again. Seems to run in circles. Not sure what Im missing...…..






Cost Puzzle Bart
Better instructions would of helped. Puzzle game. It wasn’t bad but couldn’t get into it right away. But its not my style of game but not the fault of Bart. Its still a decent game.



Debt Man Kasistokerho
Nice Black and white two stick shooter. Great sounds. Great Fun. Nice entry. I like the simple pixels. Robotron was one of my favourite games. There will some bias love for this game...…...




Pay the Price KPJ
Black and white game. Two stick shooter. Good sounds. Fits theme with the cost. I wish it had a could easier levels for my son to get into it.
I liked it. Fun simple little game.





Coin Drop Toque
Its ok. Again you spend time on art then got in over your head with the game. Probably making your first physics game in a jam was problematic.
Level design could be better. More levels. Its a finished working game I can give you that. Art was good. Good music and sounds. Decent effort. Had some fun with it. Nothing special.


Date Siolfor the jackal
Good music. Trading game. I liked the ending. Fits the theme. We liked it.



Plungy mart Panic Anotherhero
Had a story, Gocery style of game. Entertaining for awhile.

GM city
Sim city type of thing. Pretty ambitious. I could place a few things and make a little progress but coudlnt really get far with it. Fits the theme.



DanmaKaConomy Bearman_18
Bullet hell ship shooter. Looks pretty good. Lots of action. Controls were ok. I liked the music.
Not to shabby. Fun little game. Theme was there.



Pay the Price KPJ
Good shooter. Hard but fine. Theme was good. Good music. simple but like the graphics.

A Noble Quest. Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba,
Need to play some more.....

Baserisk miningboyalpha
Shooter Platformer.
Background was distracting. Music was a little annoying to my taste. I would get an error after a short time. Graphics overall were ok. A good effort there. Multi language was a nice touch.



Humpty Sp202, solistiy
3-D game. Looked pretty cool. Killed everything. Read the read me. Have to play this one again.
Impressive so far.



Dino Arena ReferesherTowel
Pretty good platformer. Great visually. Liked the music was nice. Mechanics was great. Good entry.



Otherside Gizmo199
Odd and delightful. Wonderful. Great in every way.



everyone wants your pineapple. Tsm
Shooter. Really fun. Cute characters. I like the enemies splitting. Some variety. Theme incorporated. High fun factor for us.



Phase shifter
My bias is mobile style games. This has that feel. We couldn’t stop playing it. The phase shift window is really tight. I wish it was easier to start with. Will play some more tomorrow and get a better feel for it before I can love/hate it.

1) Otherside Gizmo199
2) inkletint island TEAM FLOB
3) McMurdo by sheepgragon studios
4) HEXAGON Mererenies
5) Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
6) My Eyes Deadly serious Media
7) Debtman Kasityokerho
8) Everybody wants your pineapple Ceaselessly
9) Date by Siolfor the Jackal
10) Mansion mayhem By team 70’s
11) A noble quest by Endercurse ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
12) Summer King by cat, var, let
13) Dino Arena by Refresher Towel
14) Plungy Mart Panic by Another hero
15) Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
16) Pay the price KPJ
17) Cost Puzzle by Bart
18) May 31 by the M
19) Worth of a soul by Shadow_lancer,Cowsox
20) Banana quest By 2DSpeesman
21) Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
22) Humpty by sp2020
23) Delivery Man by XerObotXerO
24) The People Pleaser Rui Rosario
25) GMcity by Lukan
26) Breach by Lolslayer
 
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JackTurbo

Member
Didn't participate but had a blast playing all the games, so here's my thoughts:

Reviews

Top 3:

My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
Awesome! I loved it. The Comedy of it hits you right away and once that fades it just leaves you with an interesting movement mechanic and some resource management. I think this title is great.

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
Wow. Just wow! This is super cute. I like the minit-esque mechanic. Presentation is great. Love the art. A decent number of polished systems in place too. Great job this is awesome!

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
OK wow. This is fantastic. Out of all the games I've played so far, this to me seems like the one with the most potential to be expanded upon and polished into a full game.
I saw the potential in this from the first level or two and was worried you wouldnt have managed to make enough levels to really leverage all the potential it had, thankfully though you did. Awesome submission!

Best ofs:

Best use of THEME: Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
Best Concept: H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
Best Presentation: Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
Best Story: Otherside by Gizmo199
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  2. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  3. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  4. Otherside by Gizmo199
  5. Summer King by cat, var, let
  6. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  7. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  8. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  9. May 31 by The M
  10. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
  11. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  12. GMCity by Lukan
  13. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  14. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  15. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  16. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  17. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  18. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  19. Pay the Price by KPJ
  20. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  21. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  22. Coin Drop by Toque
  23. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
  24. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
  25. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  26. Breach by Lolslayer

Comments:

A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba

Wow, great presentation! Looks great plays solid. A great entry.

Banana quest by 2Dspessman

Simple game that plays well and didnt give me any errors or crashes. Gameplay didnt hook me too much but other wise seemed good

Breach by Lolslayer

Crashes on boot. Cant play it :(

Coin Drop by Toque

Simple concpet and well executed. Art is a bit of a mis-mash but no bugs that I encountered and a solid gameplay concept.

Cost Puzzle by Bart

A simple gameplay concept that worked well. Unfortunetly I feel like you didnt quite manage to make enough levels to really explore the mechanic fully or indepth enough to nail the core gameplay loop which is a pity as there is real potential there. Great job. I'd suggest expanding on it with some more levels that add some more mechanics etc. Overall I liked it a lot. :)

Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18

Ok, this seems pretty well developed. I'm just not good enough at these to really make any head way which limits my ability to really evaluate. What I did play seemed great though. I'm really impressed at the number of enemies you got implemented in the time frame. Great job!

Date by Siolfor the Jackal

Haha. Pretty simple mechanic but works well. I liked the injokes and the twist at the end.

Debtman by Käsityökerho

Really liked the story and conept. gameplay seemed solid and I ran into no bugs or anything. Good job on this one

Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0

Tiny text and a lack of clear direction/readme made playing this troublesome. I also got stuck in a lift I think.

Concept seemed reasonable, but not sure I was able to play enough of it to really tell for sure.

And why is the player Luigi?

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel

Great art. Gameplay worked well but I honestly found this way hard. Good job. Some more sound would have probably helped.

Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly

A wave based shooter. Simple in concept but pretty well executed, it was fun to play. The Red wave things were a good idea as they force you to keep moving. I also really liked the art, it had loads of charm.

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies

OK wow. This is fantastic. Out of all the games I've played so far, this to me seems like the one with the most potential to be expanded upon and polished into a full game.
I saw the potential in this from the first level or two and was worried you wouldnt have managed to make enough levels to really leverage all the potential it had, thankfully though you did. Awesome submission!

Humpty by sp202, Solistix

Nice concept, well executed. I like the isometric presentation. Its a pitty there aren't more levels to give the mechanic a chance to develop more. but great job none the less.

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB

Wow. Just wow! This is super cute. I like the minit-esque mechanic. Presentation is great. Love the art. A decent number of polished systems in place too. Great job this is awesome!

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s

Seems ambitious. A lot of system going on here. So certainly an acheivement in that regard.

May 31 by The M

Ambitious game! I really liked it. The way the villages zoom into view is cool. A pity not more of the unit types are implemented. Would love to see this taken further.

McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

Interesting. I love The Thing so this instantly clicked with me and the artwork is great. Got a crash when the creature jumped me outside. Draw Hud expected a real and got a string or something. The crunchy audio confused me a bit - is that meant to be the characters talking? Any way other than the crash the game looked great.

My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media

Awesome! I loved it. The Comedy of it hits you right away and once that fades it just leaves you with an interesting movement mechanic and some resource management. I think this title is great.

Otherside by Gizmo199

wow this seems crazy big scope and polished for a jam game. Well done my mind is pretty blown. The dialogue system is nice and juicey with the zoom. Art assets look pretty cohesive and provide a strong creative direction despite a mismatched pixel scale on some of them. Just wow all over really

Pay the Price by KPJ

Simple game mechanics, but all seemed well executed. The art was basic but seemed cohesive. A solid entry and good gamejam game.

Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit

I liked this, its a simple concept but well executed and I had fun with it. Great little game, could make a solid mobile game maybe?

Summer King by cat, var, let

This was fantastic. The core gameplay really clicked for me. The art was really nice and the sound created a nice relaxed zen atmosphere. My only complaint is that there isnt more of it! Really enjoyed this one and would love to see it expanded on further.

The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário

A text adventure. Not really sure I understood what was going on as it seemed to be looping?
 

GameDevDan

Former Jam Host
Moderator
GMC Elder
GameDevDan's Votes & Reviews

Reviews

Top 3:

My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
Really like the concept! so funny. But there should definitely have been checkpoints in a game this fiddly.

Date by Siolfor the Jackal
hahaha brilliant - just brilliant. (Story wise) The art was good.

Gameplay left a bit to be desired. It didn't really make sense that you can't pick up the ore & the blackberry and then suddenly you just can. Should have made it so you could do stuff in any order you want.

Otherside by Gizmo199
A lot of effort clearly went into it. It's cute. The boss battle is a little hard.

Best ofs:

Best use of THEME: ...
Best Concept: Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
Best Presentation: Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
Best Story: Date by Siolfor the Jackal
Best Devlog: N/A

Full ranking:

  1. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  2. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  3. Otherside by Gizmo199
  4. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  5. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  6. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  7. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  8. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  9. Coin Drop by Toque
  10. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  11. May 31 by The M
  12. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  13. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  14. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  15. Pay the Price by KPJ
  16. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  17. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  18. Summer King by cat, var, let
  19. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
  20. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  21. GMCity by Lukan
  22. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  23. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
  24. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
  25. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  26. Breach by Lolslayer

Comments:

Breach by Lolslayer

really broken for me. Just loads of glitchy lines on screen.

Date by Siolfor the Jackal

hahaha brilliant - just brilliant. (Story wise) The art was good.

Gameplay left a bit to be desired. It didn't really make sense that you can't pick up the ore & the blackberry and then suddenly you just can. Should have made it so you could do stuff in any order you want.

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel

graphics are extreeeemely pretty. But the gameplay is equally buggy.

Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly

I actually really like this. It's clearly very basic art-wise and even in terms of programming. But the concept is funny and well executed (just having that extra thing to concentrate on - picking up the pineapple and moving it - adds another dimension to the gameplay that makes it more fun than a regular TDS).

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s

Funny, I really liked the concept.

McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

The art is obviously very very nice but there doesn't seem to be much to do.

My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media

Really like the concept! so funny. But there should definitely have been checkpoints in a game this fiddly.
 
Last edited:

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Alice's Viral Reservations Reviews

Brought to you during my recovery from cold/flu (probably not coronavirus). Kept the reviews within 280 characters or under (mostly because I'm kinda tired), with exception of additional remark about Baserisk and a bunch of suggestions for Otherside.

While there have been some really cool games this time round, overall I liked the Supernatural-themed games better.

A few notes about my voting process:
Generally, when I ranked the games, I paid attention to the following:
1. Was it actually fun to play (whether in terms of mechanics or overall mood/story)?
2. Was the core concept fresh enough?
3. Does it conclude properly? I.e. when I completed the game, does the game immediately imply that (instead of getting stuck in boss defeat state or going on indefinitely)? Bonus points if conclusion is something more than "Thanks for playing" plaintext.
4. Then comes stuff like presentation, overall polish etc.

Also, when deciding on the best use of theme, I generally paid attention to "things that aren't expected to have a cost actually have a cost".
It's about the point of contrast between "EVERYTHING HAS A COST" and "NOT EVERYTHING HAS A COST" - units or buildings having cost is nothing new, but walking or staying idle having cost is more unusual. That's also why many games - usually focusing on management of naturally costly resources or on exchange of naturally costly goods - didn't feel particularly themed to me. The main exceptions are:

Banana Quest - because what seems like a classic game collectible actually turns out to be costly
H.E.X.A.G.O.N. - because movement is usually taken for granted, yet here it has specific price (not counting entries where movement costs some kind of stamina, because it's a natural cost)
Debtman - because every little thing is taxed (though here accumulating debt feels more like an accomplishment than a punishment)

Otherside could sort of fit with its "no good deed goes unpunished", exept the good deeds actually unlock the boss moves that can be counterattacked and generally make the boss battle more fun, so they don't feel as punishment at all.

--- EDIT ---

It has been brought to my attention that Otherside used premade assets. It couldn't see it in the in-game credits (there aren't any, as far as I could tell), but it's mentioned in the devlog:
Decided to use graphics and audio from another project to help mitigate some time.
Because of that, I revised my review/ranking and Best Presentation award.

Top 3:

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
Fun puzzle game, especially with movesets varying between levels. Mechanics work well together. Adequate theme use. Quite decent presentation. Somewhat fun dialogue and story. 24 levels are quite enough, though.

Date by Siolfor the Jackal
Nice little walking simulator adventure game. Presentation is good, too. Probably the best concluded game this Jam, though personally I like Eversion's (non-Jam game) ending better. Nice touch with menu after completing the game.

Otherside by Gizmo199
Extremely varied quests and boss battle. Wish I knew about running *before* winning the soccer match. Great presentation, but using premade assets. Boss battle needs some tweaks. After the hard boss battle, I wish the ending was more satisfying than plain "thanks for playing".

Best ofs:

Best use of THEME: Banana quest by 2Dspessman
Best Concept: Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
Best Presentation: Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
Best Story: Date by Siolfor the Jackal

Full ranking:

  1. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  2. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  3. Otherside by Gizmo199
  4. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  5. Summer King by cat, var, let
  6. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  7. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  8. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  9. Coin Drop by Toque
  10. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  11. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  12. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  13. Pay the Price by KPJ
  14. May 31 by The M
  15. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  16. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  17. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  18. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  19. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
  20. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha, Misu
  21. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  22. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  23. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
  24. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  25. GMCity by Lukan
  26. Breach by Lolslayer

Comments:

A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba

The game is too confusing, especially with no clear feedback about which values affect which outcomes (and how). Probably more manageable if you know ins and outs of game mechanics (e.g. prices getting lower later), but not if you're completely new. Artwork is neat, though.

Banana quest by 2Dspessman

Graphics are underwhelming. There is no music, but at least the game has sound effects. Gameplay is alright, though needs lots of precision. The best part is the story and general concept and how they tie together with the theme. Eventually, I made dad proud.

Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha, Misu

Very straightforward platformer shooter. Getting past the first zombie is tricky (especially when just learning the controls), it gets easier later. I defeated the boss and advanced further, then went off the screen; does it mean that I won? Nice graphics, alright audio.

NOTE: While the Misu isn't credited in the games topic posts, he contributed to this game, too!

Breach by Lolslayer

Not much of a playable game; I just see some radial mess with occasional shots of mine. Apparently, it was meant to be a top-down shooter? Either way, neither this nor the lightweight version worked for me; it's like the display system itself was fundamentally flawed.

Coin Drop by Toque

Nice gameplay. The slight horizontal shift of the coin emphasizes the precision aspect. The bats level was particularly challenging. Presentation is alright. I guess pigs do fly, after all.

Cost Puzzle by Bart

Simple puzzle game. Would have liked more gameplay variety. Pretty generic theme use. Nice graphics, if maybe the colours are a bit dull (and the text blends with yellow part of the background too much). Alright ambient music, no audio.

Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18

Why unskippable tutorial? Curious idea, though during my last gameplay ship prices were mostly around the base 25mil. Nice variety of ships shottypes. Would love some coin magnet. Some enemy bullets were behind the laser - player bullets should always be behind enemy's.

Date by Siolfor the Jackal

Nice little walking simulator adventure game. Presentation is good, too. Probably the best concluded game this Jam, though personally I like Eversion's (non-Jam game) ending better. Nice touch with menu after completing the game.

Debtman by Käsityökerho

$35985 debt, wave 12. Basic shooter gameplay. Nice enemies variety. Simple but neat graphics, basic SFX, no music. Couldn't see where my mouse was aiming (no mouse cursor nor crosshair). Props for every little action having a cost, though here "cost" is more of an accomplishment.

Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0

The game supposedly decides what kind of person I am - apparently, I'm the kind of person who gets stuck in misaligned elevator. Mechanics too flawed to reliable go to upper floors. Presentation is alright, but why Luigi is the delivery guy? Also, no credits.

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel

Simple hi-score platforming fighter with stamina as the "cost". Mechanics are functional, but a little wonky. Would have preferred difficulty progression instead of randomized number of enemies. Graphics are nice; no audio, though.

Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly

Pretty intense yet fun, especially with that shooting and moving pineapple tradeoff. I would have liked the gameplay better if bonuses didn't involve costs (theme, I know... but I don't like the theme much). Presentation is alright. Gradually increasing gun spread is pretty cool.

GMCity by Lukan

Apparently I can place some facilities here and there, but that's about it? I placed water and power plant buildings like tutorial told me to, but there seemed to be no continuation. Don't see much of a theme. No audio. The roads connect nicely, though.

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies

Fun puzzle game, especially with movesets varying between levels. Mechanics work well together. Adequate theme use. Quite decent presentation. Somewhat fun dialogue and story. 24 levels are quite enough, though.

Humpty by sp202, Solistix

Pretty simple puzzle game, with only one level. First move every turn is free, so rather incomplete theme use. Tiles are neat. Kinda hard to tell the enemies and protagonist apart at first, because both are blobs of metallic somehting. No audio.

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB

Short but sweet. Has some variety to gameplay. Cute graphics and audio. Collecting orange, lemon and blackberry is enough to get endgame dialogue - good for speedrunners. I wish game wouldn't automatically collect all previous fruits with their HP bonus, though.

May 31 by The M

A simple tower defense game. For some reason, player can purchase unimplemented units - it should have been removed from UI instead. I gave up two topmost districts and successfully defended myself in middle one for all 30 days. Simple graphics, no audio. No proper conclusion.

McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

Tried it twice. First I didn't know there's an exit from house; eventually a witch appeared and after that the game crashed. Second time I searched for the storage and witch appeared and game crashed. Good and varied graphics. Alright SFX, but why Phoebe speaks in lazer shots?

My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media

Pretty hilarious concept, especially with that over-the-top screaming. Tricky to learn, but difficulty is manageable. Presentation is stylish. I wish the game would have a proper conclusion - after landing on the body, I just bounced back to the bottom like at the start.

Otherside by Gizmo199

Extremely varied quests and boss battle. Wish I knew about running *before* winning the soccer match. Great presentation, but using premade assets. Boss battle needs some tweaks. After the hard boss battle, I wish the ending was more satisfying than plain "thanks for playing".

More specific points to mention:

1. The game does seem to mention "Shift" near the start, but doesn't say that it's used for running. Also, it can coincide with reading the sign in the first area, making it easier to miss. I'm all for non-intrusive tutorials, but the running feature - which is not immediately essential - should have been emphasized more. I dunno, maybe provide controls in a popup so player can't easily miss them? Include simple obstacle that requires running to advance? Always display controls guide in the background of the first room?

2. On my second playthrough I've found that soul coins gained are randomised? I got $10 on my first playthrough, $11 on second (got $3 from WEEPING WIDOW one time, then $4 the other time). Something as essential as HP cap shouldn't be subjected to randomness!

3. The boss seem to have way too much health. Though maybe it relates to the next point...

4. The boss moves sequence seems to be completely randomised. It means that you can get three football match attacks in a row or maybe three sets of spike pits instead. With different moves being objectively better than others - the spike pits and pitchfork give no opportunity to deal damage, while quest-themed moves do - I think it'd be better to shuffle them instead (ensuring that the same move isn't used twice in a row is a nice bonus). As it is now, you can get lots of no-attack moves in a row, just trying to survive until you get lucky and get a better move next time. Or, if you get lucky, you'll get many soccer matches in a row, giving you an opportunity to deal multiple points of damage per session when other times you could deal at most one point.

5. The boss flies around too chaotically to be reliably avoided - you can try to stay away as much as possible, but they'll just approach very quickly to the next destination spot, sometimes sliding across nearly entire battlefield width. No way to predict where the boss moves next and no room for reaction leads to losing HP unfairly sometimes. Either limiting the range of boss movement or telegraphing where the boss will move next should help here.

6. Maybe give a little breather between boss moves? Having spike pits immediately appear when boss says "Let's get to the point" leaves a tad too little room for reaction, especially if the player is in the middle of other movement or even worse - turning around.

Pay the Price by KPJ

Basic platforming shooter with ongoing budget reduction and additional fees for taking damage and shooter; not very original use of theme here. Graphics are simple but neat, audio works well enough. Simple but enjoyable overall.

Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit

Alright gameplay. Found that focusing on jumping and phasing was the most effective method. Decent graphics, nice audio. Wish music wouldn't restart at the start of each level.

Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero

Took me a while to grasp, but after that it was much easier. On my third run, I think I managed to serve a dozen or a few heroes before the cart spawned at unreachable area. Controls are weird - why not arrows+Enter? Presentation is alright. Nice market-style music.

Summer King by cat, var, let

Cool puzzle game idea, balancing out the immediate cost, the per-turn returns and the cash cap increase. Grasslands are particularly interesting, because they just let the turn advance, adding to the gains. Very pretty graphics, nice music, no audio.

The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário

Interesting premise, but seems not unfinished. In one case phrasing didn't specify whether you stop animals being hurt or join the hurting. Just text and gradients, no audio. I don't quite see each decision having a cost, more like purely positive or purely negative outcomes.

Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox

I like the idea of judging the exchanges. Really cool graphics with some neat animations mixed in. No audio to be heard, despite music mentioned in credits. The game concludes on a rather open-ended note.
 
Last edited:

curato

Member
Reviews
Top 3:
Coin Drop by Toque
real nice puzzler. It really does have an optorunity cost you have to weight for each move. very simple and effective design.
Cost Puzzle by Bart
nice puzzle mechanic. would be interesting to see the mechanics exspanded somehow. instruction text could have used a little pop from the background like a darker color or drop shadow.
Summer King by cat, var, let
neat little puzzler. good use of theme
Best ofs:
Best use of THEME: Coin Drop by Toque
Best Concept: H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
Best Presentation: Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
Best Story: Date by Siolfor the Jackal
Best Devlog: ...
Full ranking:
  1. Coin Drop by Toque
  2. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  3. Summer King by cat, var, let
  4. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  5. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  6. Otherside by Gizmo199
  7. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  8. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  9. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  10. May 31 by The M
  11. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  12. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  13. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  14. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  15. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  16. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  17. Pay the Price by KPJ
  18. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  19. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  20. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
  21. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  22. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  23. GMCity by Lukan
  24. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
  25. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
  26. Breach by Lolslayer
Comments:
A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
Nice old scholl RPG flavor. There are a ton of options without much explaination of the cost benifit. I poked at the options until I died. would have felt better with a bit more plot and gradual introduction of skill with a brief tutorial on the pluses and minuses.

Banana quest by 2Dspessman
otherwise straight forward game. kind of wierd when you are banana questing that you can leave the level without getting all the bananas. you have to play the whole thing though to even figure the theme it is kind of burrying the headline.

Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
The AI is pretty relentless and the aim is hard to get righ unless the target is above you. I wasted a lot of bullet shooting in air and ran out.
Breach by Lolslayer
I guess there is a cost benifit with the different weapons and ammo depletion rate. The little maze to break up the relentless waves is a good idea. custom lighting was nice but there was way too little of it.
Coin Drop by Toque
real nice puzzler. It really does have an optorunity cost you have to weight for each move. very simple and effective design.
Cost Puzzle by Bart
nice puzzle mechanic. would be interesting to see the mechanics exspanded somehow. instruction text could have used a little pop from the background like a darker color or drop shadow.
Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
not sure it look like a top down ship shooter with some sort of ecomonic mechanic. I went through the lengthy explaination and bought ships to not have them when the level loaded and shot some stuff with the same tutorial ship and got some money and got hit then somehow I was bankrupt and it wouldn't reload and didn't have another obvious option to close.
Date by Siolfor the Jackal
what this game lacks in length and difficulty it makes up for in the ending lol.
Debtman by Käsityökerho
pretty straight forward shooter. pretty fun for being such a simple concept. with all that front loaded story it would be nice if there was some levels and story to go with the game place maybe post appocoliptic city scape to go through and get objectives to beat the empire. Also the story cuts a little too close to home these days.
Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
kinda just had to muck around a bit to figure what I was doing but once I got it down the elevator broke. I managed to break it into the street and that made it much easier to walk up and down the building to do deliveres.

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
looks nice but I kept falling though the floor and could move but not see myself.
Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
simple click to shoot deal with some pat your head and rub your tummy mmo mechanics. Seems a little overtuned imho.
GMCity by Lukan
built some stuff never said anything else. not reall sure what else there is to do here.
H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
well thought out puzzler. I like the game. I do not like subscription plans :p
Humpty by sp202, Solistix
nice graphics. simple concept. could use some in game instructions instead of spaming popups of read the readme.

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
nice presentation. good graphics. cost to move mechanic. A little bit of a wander around till you find the all kind of deal.
Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
turn based figter. not much variety in skills. got to grind the same dude to get the boss down. kind of wierd that skills cost money to use.
May 31 by The M
tower defense. could use a bit more of the options. straight forward cost system. the cost kind of pinches what you can drop pretty good.
McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
I really like the concept of a monster in some sort of artic research facility. I got around and looked at everything (I could have done without that sound and the slow text). The the demon come to get you and the game crashes. I am not sure if that is where you die or something interesting happens then. Too bad it crashes. horror rpg would be up my alley
The Crash
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_player:
draw_text_ext argument 1 incorrect type (string) expecting a Number (YYGF)
at gml_Script_draw_hud
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Script_draw_hud (line -1)
gml_Object_obj_player_Draw_64

My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
very odd concept. I assume you are supposed to get back to you body or something? Not sure if there is a point after decapitation. I scooted around I couldn't get a foot hold to continue up from
Otherside by Gizmo199
Interesting concept. nice looking old cool rpg. ran all over the forest 10 time and not wife to be seen and the soccer kid is over tuned and is one point up before you even clear the dialog.

Pay the Price by KPJ
a little shorter than I would have liked. Level just restarts when you kill everything. Everything did have a cost in money but it could have just as easily been energy or something. Not that it costng energy is bad.
Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
always wanted to do a game that shifted phases and now I have.
Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
not sure if you can win, but I played it until the cart disappeared.
Summer King by cat, var, let
neat little puzzler. good use of theme
The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
not sure if there is a secret end to the question text but I went though the loop a few times and it didn't seem like it did much to please people just circled through the text.

Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
looks neat and nice atmosphere. could use a bit more depth and story of why and what you are doing.
 
R

Red Phantom

Guest
Reviews

Top 3:

Otherside by Gizmo199
I can safely say this game was a very pleasant surprise.
The atmosphere is superb and chilling. The music well... let's just say I've never experienced anything that so beautifully fits the game and sounds so nice too.
Little details like birds flying away when you near them are great.
The boss battle is probably one of the coolest boss battles I have ever seen (although I could not complete it because I found it difficult).
The game is really fun with the little missions to help people.
The story concept is pretty chilling and awesome too.
The graphics, well amazing too, especially the boss.
Playing soccer with the kid was really hard but so much fun and I really enjoyed the little adventure of finding the man's wife.
This game has my heart, there's nothing I don't like about this game, except that there isn't more to it!
I hope this isn't a long stretch but I really want to encourage Gizmo199 to make this into a bigger game because I think this has potential to become a classic indie game that people won't forget.

Game level design/gameplay concept/difficulty: 5/5
Graphics: 5/5
Music & Audio: 5/5
Story: 5/5
Interface/Technical: 5/5
Enjoyment: 5/5
Overall: 5/5

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
I really loved this game and really want to rate it 1st, but 'Otherside' is just too amazing to beat.
This is one of those games you will enjoy playing 2nd time or even 3rd time around, because it's just so original, explorative, colourful and fun.
Exploring the map and socialing with the characters was immensely enjoyable.
Obtaining the fruits was very satisfying with the nice animation.
Really love the concept of colour hue stamina.
I also really like the imperfect but nice graphics.
I want to see more!
Managed to complete the game.

Game level design/gameplay concept/difficulty: 5/5
Graphics: 4.5/5 (not professional, but I really like the graphics)
Music & Audio: 5/5 (music suits the game really well)
Story: 4.5/5 (not the most amazing story but is a nice short story that is interesting and original, still it's great to interact with all the different characters)
Interface/Technical: 5/5
Enjoyment: 5/5
Overall: 5/5

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
This game was so much fun and I really loved it, the only reason I didn't rate it higher is because the other games had even better gameplay concepts. Really fun strategy/puzzle game. I loved the graphics and the music fits well with the game. It is always exciting to see a new type of tile when progressing through levels for the first time. The story is pretty cool and interesting too.
Managed to complete the game.

Game level design/gameplay concept/difficulty: 5/5
Graphics: 5/5
Music & Audio: 5/5
Story: 4.5/5
Interface/Technical: 5/5
Enjoyment: 4.5/5
Overall: 5/5

Best ofs:

Best use of THEME: A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
Best Concept: Otherside by Gizmo199
Best Presentation: Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
Best Story: Otherside by Gizmo199
Best Devlog: My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media

Full ranking:

  1. Otherside by Gizmo199
  2. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  3. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  4. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  5. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  6. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
  7. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
  8. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  9. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  10. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  11. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  12. Summer King by cat, var, let
  13. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  14. Coin Drop by Toque
  15. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  16. Pay the Price by KPJ
  17. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  18. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  19. May 31 by The M
  20. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  21. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  22. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  23. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  24. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  25. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
  26. GMCity by Lukan
  27. Breach by Lolslayer

Comments:

A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba

Music is great but a bit full-on.
Love the graphics, especially the characters you come across, really amazing.
Would have loved to give this game a much higher rating if it was easier to play. Interacting with the characters was a bit confusing for me.

Banana quest by 2Dspessman

I'm not the biggest fan of the graphics in this game.
Also I'm not really sure what I'm working towards as I progress through the levels.
Still I would say this is more of a game than GMCity and Breach so I rated it a bit higher.

Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha

Fun game which I personally really liked.
Gameplay is simple and is nothing special but I liked it.
Love the music and actually don't mind the graphics (and I like how they are original).
Ending is a bit strange.
Better graphics, variety of enemies, and fixed ending would have gotten this game a better rating.
Managed to complete the game.

Game level design/gameplay concept/difficulty: 4/5
Graphics: 3.5/5
Music & Audio: 4/5
Story: NA
Interface/Technical: 5/5
Enjoyment: 4/5
Overall: 3.5/5

Breach by Lolslayer

I rated this game last because I couldn't play it due to this starting error:

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in Vertex Shader compilation
ShaderName: shd_map

D3DXCompile failed - result

at gml_Object_obj_camera_Draw_0
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Object_obj_camera_Draw_0 (line -1)


Coin Drop by Toque

Better graphics than any game rated below it.
I also trust the originality of the graphics.
Fun atmosphere with the music.
Unfortrunately I'm not a fan of the gameplay concept, I personally think it's rather limited, which for me brought this game's rating down a fair bit.
However, this game has a decent length compared to many of the other games rated below it.
This game also matches the Jam theme really well.
Managed to complete the game.

Cost Puzzle by Bart

A very clean and nice game that comes together well in comparison to all the games rated below it.
I do like the graphics and their originality.
More levels and this game could have been rated a bit higher.
Difficulty is also really easy.
Gameplay concept is rather basic for me.
Managed to complete the game.

Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18

This game is a lot more functional than all of the game's rated below it.
However, I'm not really a fan of this shooter gameplay style and the consistency in graphics is a bit off for me.
It's really easy to lose this game and the levels seem to be the same.
Different levels, easier difficulty and a different scrolling background would have given this game a much higher rating.

Date by Siolfor the Jackal

Ok so I really loved this game until the ending.
I would have loved to rate this game 4th place or higher but I personally really didn't like the gothic, human sacrificial ending.
Atmosphere (until the ending) is great and spot-on fun.
I personally really liked the explorative social gameplay and found it very fun.
Music is nice and I really love the clean simple graphics (especially of the creepy character hiding in the corner by the trees).
I also really like the graphics of the guy hammering the steel.
Managed to complete the game.

Game level design/gameplay concept/difficulty: 4.5/5 (increased length of game would have given this 5 stars)
Graphics: 5/5
Music & Audio: 5/5
Story: 1/5
Interface/Technical: 5/5
Enjoyment: 4/5
Overall: 3.5/5

Debtman by Käsityökerho

Very fun and addictive game with great gameplay.
I like the decent variety of characters too.
Difficulty is pretty reasonable, perhaps a bit high.
The game seems to fit pretty well with the Jam theme too.

Game level design/gameplay concept/difficulty: 4.5/5 (due to slightly high difficulty)
Graphics: 5/5 (simple but great)
Music & Audio: 1/5 (no music)
Story: 4/5
Interface/Technical: 5/5 (easy controls, no bugs)
Enjoyment: 4.5/5
Overall: 4/5

Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0

Ok so at least this game has music unlike some of the other games.
Not really a fan of the game's concept, I personally prefer things more exciting than a delivery man.
I also doubt the originality of some of the sprites (and the music), like the main character (luigi is used), I prefer a game with a bit more originiality.
Elevator was fairly glitchy.
Still at least this is a bit of a game and has a bit of an atmosphere with the music.

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel

This game purely got a decent rating because of the really nice graphics.
Unfortunately I don't really like how 'D' is used both for movement and to drop through platforms, which causes the game to not be progressable and I have to restart.
Still really nice graphics,
Added music could have given this game a slightly higher rating.

Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly

Personally not a fan of this gameplay concept.
However, this game had a much funner atmosphere than all the games rated below it thanks to the unlimited shooting and nice music.
Also not a fan of the background.
Also there seems to be no way of avoiding the red objects that swipe across the screen to hit the pineapple.

GMCity by Lukan

I rated this game second last because all I could do in it was place square and road tiles on a grid.

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies

This game was so much fun and I really loved it, the only reason I didn't rate it higher is because the other games had even better gameplay concepts. Really fun strategy/puzzle game. I loved the graphics and the music fits well with the game. It is always exciting to see a new type of tile when progressing through levels for the first time. The story is pretty cool and interesting too.
Managed to complete the game.

Game level design/gameplay concept/difficulty: 5/5
Graphics: 5/5
Music & Audio: 5/5
Story: 4.5/5
Interface/Technical: 5/5
Enjoyment: 4.5/5
Overall: 5/5

Humpty by sp202, Solistix

This was a bit more interesting than some of the other games rated below it.
Not really a fan of the graphics however, the strategic gameplay is actually quite fun.
If this game had different graphics, more levels, and some music I would have easily rated it much higher.
Managed to complete the game.

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB

I really loved this game and really want to rate it 1st, but 'Otherside' is just too amazing to beat.
This is one of those games you will enjoy playing 2nd time or even 3rd time around, because it's just so original, explorative, colourful and fun.
Exploring the map and socialing with the characters was immensely enjoyable.
Obtaining the fruits was very satisfying with the nice animation.
Really love the concept of colour hue stamina.
I also really like the imperfect but nice graphics.
I want to see more!
Managed to complete the game.

Game level design/gameplay concept/difficulty: 5/5
Graphics: 4.5/5 (not professional, but I really like the graphics)
Music & Audio: 5/5 (music suits the game really well)
Story: 4.5/5 (not the most amazing story but is a nice short story that is interesting and original, still it's great to interact with all the different characters)
Interface/Technical: 5/5
Enjoyment: 5/5
Overall: 5/5

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s

Fun and addictive game.
Not a fan of the: music, gameplay concept (not very original in my opinion) and some of the graphics.
Really liked the graphics of some of the bosses, especially bob.
Also liked the graphics of the locked door of the big bank.
Really love the boss battles in general.
If this game had a few improved graphics and different music I probably would have placed it in 6th place or higher.
Managed to complete the game.

Game level design/gameplay concept/difficulty: 3/5
Graphics: 2.5/5
Music & Audio: 2/5
Story: 2/5
Interface/Technical: 5/5
Enjoyment: 5/5
Overall: 3/5

May 31 by The M

This is actually a decent overall game with a nice gameplay concept that reminds me of BTD games.
The graphics seem to be original and are actually very nice.
Unfortunately the lack of a 'game over' or 'objective to win the game' and lack of music meant that I didn't want to rate this game higher.

McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

I don't think this game matched up well with the Jam theme and the game is very incomplete with a major bug too.
However, the story and atmosphere are intruiging and the graphics are amazing, which is why I rated this game so high.
If this game was a bit more complete and there was something to do I probably would have rated it 2nd.

Game level design/gameplay concept/difficulty: 1/5 (nothing to interact with
Graphics: 5/5
Music & Audio: 1/5
Story: 3.5/5
Interface/Technical: 1/5 (very slow text, major bug)
Enjoyment: 3/5
Overall: 3.5/5

My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media

Amazing introduction and love the graphics of the main character.
Concept is really cool and amazing and I want to rate this game higher but I really don't like the gameplay.
The difficulty is also very high, I couldn't get very high up after spending at least half an hour on the game.
Music is perfect.
Game has a suberb atmosphere.
If the gameplay was different I probably would have rated this game 2nd-4th.

Game level design/gameplay concept/difficulty: 1/5
Graphics: 5/5
Music & Audio: 5/5
Story: 5/5
Interface/Technical: 5/5
Enjoyment: 2.5/5
Overall: 3.5/5

Otherside by Gizmo199

I can safely say this game was a very pleasant surprise.
The atmosphere is superb and chilling. The music well... let's just say I've never experienced anything that so beautifully fits the game and sounds so nice too.
Little details like birds flying away when you near them are great.
The boss battle is probably one of the coolest boss battles I have ever seen (although I could not complete it because I found it difficult).
The game is really fun with the little missions to help people.
The story concept is pretty chilling and awesome too.
The graphics, well amazing too, especially the boss.
Playing soccer with the kid was really hard but so much fun and I really enjoyed the little adventure of finding the man's wife.
This game has my heart, there's nothing I don't like about this game, except that there isn't more to it!
I hope this isn't a long stretch but I really want to encourage Gizmo199 to make this into a bigger game because I think this has potential to become a classic indie game that people won't forget.

Game level design/gameplay concept/difficulty: 5/5
Graphics: 5/5
Music & Audio: 5/5
Story: 5/5
Interface/Technical: 5/5
Enjoyment: 5/5
Overall: 5/5

Pay the Price by KPJ

Graphics aren't amazing but they are original which is great.
Gameplay concept is pretty basic and there is a lack of levels.
Still decently fun game which I personally like.
Managed to complete the game.

Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit

I personally love: the graphics (background, platform, main character, enemies, portal), music, gameplay concept.
Difficulty is a bit too easy and the game is very short.
Somewhat of a small story with this game would have been nice.
Managed to complete the game.

Game level design/gameplay concept/difficulty: 4/5 (too easy and very short)
Graphics: 4.5/5 (simple but really like the graphics)
Music & Audio: 5/5 (music is perfect for the game)
Story: NA
Interface/Technical: 4.5 (don't really like shift to shoot)
Enjoyment: 4/5
Overall: 4/5

Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero

Love the originality of this game and it's graphics.
Not my favourite gameplay concept but at least it's original (at least to me).

Summer King by cat, var, let

Really like the graphics and the music is nice.
The first time I played the game I didn't understand it, but the second time I did and had lots of fun playing.
It is a fun puzzle/strategy game.
It would of been nice to see a few more levels.
There's a glitch where all the platforms float off the screen.
Managed to complete the game.

The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário

Not really a fan of a game that is purely text, I also could only seem to find one ending.
Text also gets repetitive.
Simply adding music could have gotten this game a slightly higher rating.
Adding graphics for characters would have made this game a lot nicer.
Managed to complete the game.

Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox

Not my favourite gameplay concept however, I think it's fairly original (well at least I haven't played anything exactly like it before).
Adding music would have got this game a slightly higher rating.
Managed to complete the game.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
-1st Place-
Otherside

by Gizmo199
The art, atmospherics, and sheer variety are what made Otherside clinch first place in my book. Lots of Jam games (speaking of mine mostly though) never quite reach the finish state, much less that final gloss of polish. Some areas weren't done, but the ones that were, truly were. Nothing half-baked was left to muddle the experience beyond intentional dialogue. And even then, if that hadn't been there, I would have been none the wiser, thinking it was just an another aesthetic building.

-2nd Place-
H.E.X.A.G.O.N
by Mercerenies
This puzzle game had the best (and most unique) mechanics of all the submitted puzzles. The use of three different dials for movement, plus terrain considerations, plus subscription limitations, made for a very engaging experience. I will admit, I was intimidated by some of the levels, thinking there was no way I was going to figure it out, but somehow everything always clicked in the end, making it satisfying while still challenging. The fact that the very good story-line and banter in the game, almost took second fiddle, is just a testament to how refreshing solid mechanics can be.

-3rd Place-
Inkletint Island
by TEAM FLOB
There were a number of item collection type games this go round, but this one stuck with me the most. It's amazing how well just a simple tweak of the formula can make something old feel fresh. Re-spawning and having a limited range suddenly made it more of a puzzle game and less of a bare-bones RPG. It was no longer just about finding things or people, but how you find the things and people. What would have been monotonous travel in-between map areas was suddenly engaging and something to plan for, rather than just slog through.

Best ofs:
Best use of THEME: Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
Best Concept: H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
Best Presentation: Otherside by Gizmo199
Best Story: Debtman by Käsityökerho
Best Devlog: ...
Individual Reviews:
A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba

Great presentation with the art and music. Has a very polished feel. I was a little lost in the game-play, mainly because there wasn’t really an indicator of progression. Budgeting how much bread I was going to need was a shot in the dark because I didn’t know how many towns I had to go through. Ended up skimping on soldiers and then having all my rations stolen by goblins. Lots of good variety in the encounters though.

Banana quest by 2Dspessman

I like how the bananas are a MacGuffin (On purpose?). When you die there is no penalty to your score, so the game is actually about patiently getting the wobbly character past the game systems. Not sure how gameboys intersect with banana collection on a thematic level, or exactly if/how there was a cost. But hey… It’s bananas.

Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha

Baserisk – Now where have I heard those zombie sounds before? Nice objectives animation. I got hung up on the third level (maybe that’s all there is? There was a nice city-scape background you wander into, like a cowboy going into the sunset). Character exited stage left and didn’t come back. Restarted the level, but I no longer had a gun? So it was a free brain buffet for the creepers… er... I mean zombies.

Breach by Lolslayer

Sweet graphics (but you already knew that). One of the best things about game jams is how they give you a reason to try out something new. And for tackling normal mapping and producing something functioning, I salute you.

Coin Drop by Toque

Sounds are great. Physics all worked smoothly. The visual change to the piggy bank was also an appreciated touch, given you could have just left it at the number indicator. And an un-bonus level is always fun.

Cost Puzzle by Bart

The text on the background was hard to read due to the similar contrast values. A bit short, but the vibe was spot on (pun intended). The music and soft simple shapes made a cohesive experience. Only wish it was longer. Felt like it was just getting started with the coin and then it was done.

Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18

Was skeptical at first, but the variety and personality won me over. Graphics were good. Sounds were good. My only critique would be that the border-less window made it a little hard to close and restart when I inevitable got slain by Mr. Monopoly (A sentence I never thought I’d write).

Date by Siolfor the Jackal

Potato toast and Walter White with Thor’s hammer is always a good time. Game-play was a bit mediocre (not much more than walking around) but the animations, interactions, and sound were all lovely. Until that ending tho…

Debtman by Käsityökerho

I guess I owe future corrupt government $30,500 now... Solid game mechanics. Using just the keyboard felt slightly limiting (I assume a controller gives full 360 aim?) but that didn’t really matter because of the strong use of theme and the quality of the presentation. I’m split on music or not. I can see where having some might be nice, but no sound also has feeling all its own, giving a hollow and empty vibe that adds to the experience.

Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0

Like the graphics. Sound was great. Elevator bugged out and made me restart a bunch. It wouldn't let me off on floors or would go down futher than it was supposed to. Also, not sure what the [+] button by the time is, for. I assume byuing time with money? But when I clicked on it a whole bunch my bank account went negative then started going positive again. So it was basically infinite time and money. The thought of Luigi running knockoff italian amazon prime is pretty funny though.

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel

Does falling under the arena floor count as winning the match? No? Ok. Then I guess I'm not spartucus of the triassic period... Looked great and felt solid unitl the aforementioned error. Tried it a couple times and ended up with me under the map on two out of three excursions. Seemed to hapen when enemies attacked me on the ground, so I'm guessing a knockback error that pushes me through the ground?

Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly

I have never protected a pineapple before. But apparently I'm not very good at it, that or the red wave of death is unstopable. And when when an unstopable force meets a very stopable, squisky, fleshy pineapple, it's no contest. Liked the music.

GMCity by Lukan

Not much else to do beyond buiding and watching your bank account grow. I appreciated that the roads oriented vertically though.

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies

Really fun puzzles. The art fit well and extra props for all the little features, like moving the view, the sounds, and the scrolling main screen menu.

Humpty by sp202, Solistix

A winna iz me. And a cheater... Intersting puzzle mechanic with life being swapable for moves. Wish it was longer, but 3D can be a beast. And the animations were well done.

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB

Great use of colors and the ink asthetic. Loads of personality. Sound fit well too. I appreciate the little touches, like putting in a placeholder character for areas that weren't finished, and the whistle guy. The overall concept of collecting things wasn't too novel, but the idea of being limited in your wanderings and respawning a la groundhog day gave it just enough of a tweak to make it hold my attention.

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s

Love the 70s flair. Music and sounds fit really well. And the inflation twist was funny.

May 31 by The M

Scorched earth tactics FTW. Fell back to the last point and just stacked the line with troops and a spider's web of barricades. Neat idea of the wave defense with different tactical points. The visual look was cohesive. Sounds would have been nice, but you obviously didn't have time.

McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

I saw the professional looking intro screen, then these beautiful graphics, and then...

FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_player:

draw_text_ext argument 1 incorrect type (string) expecting a Number (YYGF)
at gml_Script_draw_hud
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Script_draw_hud (line -1)
gml_Object_obj_player_Draw_64

Unfortunately restarting didn't clear it. Bummer. Judging off the first four seconds though, I'm guessing it would have been at least OK across the different catagories

My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media

Ooooo.... pretty star. Then it all went downhill... literally. Wasn't really sure how the laser eyes fit with everything having a cost. Is it that inaction has a cost? Or be careful what you wish for, because even wishing on a star has a cost? I'm so confused. And the screaming and spontaneous combustion doen't help either. But on a more serious note... cool laser effect. I wasn't able to get very far, because the laser control was a bit buggy. Sometimes it wouldn't fire and I'd end up just burning. But I was intrigued and would have liked to see what the ending was. Also, it seems to be a thinly veiled and fairly accurate representation of what people feel watching politics...

Otherside by Gizmo199

I was gushing over the cool film grain effect and then I stepped outside the cave and... H-O-L-Y C-O-W. Well... demon cows eventually.... but you get my point. Really well done atmosphirics. The variety and animations are all top notch. Scope was impressive for a jam game. And the music was good too.

Pay the Price by KPJ

Wish there was a bit more variety, but nice retro graphics. Music was also good.

Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit

The limit to the amount of time you could spend on each block block type was a cool theory, but in practice I never had to worry about it. Just focusing on phase shifting and platform jumping, I was able to get to the end no problem, even after getting shot and running into about half the draining obstacles along the way. I didn't even used my gun once, come to think of it. The mind stretching to worry about position, jumping, and phasing was pretty engaging though. I would say the music loop was a bit repetative, but that's only because I kept dying at first. Once I was actually moving through the level it was just fine.

Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero

My cart bugged out after about the fourth customer and got stuck trying to spawn in. But great presentation. It was suprisingly cohesive and the inclusion of a backstory was cool. For some reason it scream Kirby to me. Not sure why.

Summer King by cat, var, let

Rather short and clicking on particular tiles was a bit muddled due to the occlusion. But the art was nice and the music was good.

The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário

I'm assuming everyone in the town has aucte dementia. Having the same conversation over and over again in the span of a few minutes is a clear sign. Or perhaps this is part of the mechanics? I wasn't sure if I was supposed to remember their responses so I could answer correctly when I talk to them again (which if they don't remember what I said the first time, then that is also dimentia) or if each conversation added to a compounded likeable meter. Either way, I ended up in the same place with one person liking me and one person being unsure.

Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox

Well done text effects and I like the animations for when objects appear. I sort of just clicked my way to victory, didn't really have to make much strategy in my trades. You get everything and I get a halo. Seems reasonable.
 

Mercerenies

Member
Mercerenies' Hilariously Gargantuan and Nightmarishly Gregarious Reviews

1. Mansion Mayhem - Team 70s
2. Inkletint Island - TEAM FLOB
3. My Eyes - Deadly Serious Media

Full rankings:
1. Mansion Mayhem - Team 70s
2. Inkletint Island - TEAM FLOB
3. My Eyes - Deadly Serious Media
4. Date - Siolfor the Jackal
5. Coin Drop - Toque
6. Summer King - cat, var, let
7. A Noble's Quest - Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
8. Worth of a Soul - Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
9. Debtman - Käsityökerho
10. May 31 - The M
11. Danmakuconomy - Bearman_18
12. Otherside - Gizmo199
13. Plungy Mart Panic! - AnotherHero
14. Banana Quest - 2Dspessman
15. GMCity - Lukan
16. Cost Puzzle - Bart
17. Baserisk - TheMiningBoyAlpha
18. Pay the Price - KPJ
19. Delivery Man - Xer0botXer0
20. The People Pleaser - Rui Rosario
21. Dino Arena - RefresherTowel
22. Phase Shifter - Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
23. Everybody Wants your Pineapple - ceaselessly
24. Humpty - sp202, Solistix
25. Breach - lolslayer
26. McMurdo - SheepDragon Studios

Best Use of Theme - Date (Siolfor the Jackal)
Best Concept - A Noble's Quest (Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba)
Best Presentation - Worth of a Soul (Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox)

Reviews

I'll be reviewing every game and rating them across five categories: Gameplay, Graphics, Audio, Theme, and Personal Opinion. Your total score is not a definitive indicator of my vote for you; I determine my votes holistically. And don't be discouraged by a negative review: remember that I'm hilariously gargantuan and nightmarishly gregarious, so I'm giving constructive feedback to everybody. We're all friends, and it's totally awesome that you managed to produce a game in the first place.

Reviews will be listed in alphabetical order by the name of the game.

A Noble's Quest - Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba (28/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (4/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (9/10)

A very solid entry, through and through. The aesthetics especially stood out to me. It feels simultaneously retro in the sense of 8-bit and also retro in the sense of old-fashioned. In terms of gameplay, it's basically an Oregon-Trail-style game set in a different world. Very cool idea. The mechanics are well explained and pretty easy to get the hang of. Never really found a use for jesters. I assume they're supposed to make "Joke" more effective, but nobody was amused by my sense of humor. Regardless, I didn't get to an end as I always ended up in debt. I wonder if there is an ending.

Banana Quest - 2Dspessman (7/30)
Gameplay (2/5)
Graphics (1/5)
Audio (1/5)
Theme (0/5)
Opinion (3/10)

A pretty basic entry. The mechanics aren't explained but they're simple enough that they don't really warrant explanation. There's not a whole lot to say. Intentionally loose movement makes the little game-boy-color thingies more of an obstacle than they would be otherwise. Although I found that using my laptop's touchpad rather than a physical mouse made the game almost trivial.

Baserisk - TheMiningBoyAlpha (19/30)
Gameplay (3/5)
Graphics (2/5)
Audio (3/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (6/10)

A pretty basic sideview shooter. The visuals looked very nice at first, but they really started to wear on my eyes as the game went on; there was just a bit too much going on for my tastes. The combat was pretty basic, nothing to really say there. But I somehow softlocked myself offscreen; I kept respawning off to the left of the screen and dying slowly over and over again.

Breach - lolslayer (4/30)
Gameplay (0/5)
Graphics (1/5)
Audio (1/5)
Theme (0/5)
Opinion (2/10)

I'm getting the same black screen problem that everybody else seems to be reporting. Which is especially odd because I'm running this on an actual gaming laptop, not just some cheap box. I really don't know what you did, and it's sad because based on the screenshot it looked pretty cool. I did try the lightweight version: same black screen. C'est la vie, I suppose.

Coin Drop - Toque (25/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (4/5)
Audio (4/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (7/10)

I can definitely respect a well-executed single-button game, because that's not an easy thing to pull off. Pretty entertaining coin drop minigame turned into a whole game of its own. The unbonus level was quite difficult (certainly more difficult than the one after it), so that's where I spent most of my time. Cool entry, and well-executed.

Cost Puzzle - Bart (19/30)
Gameplay (4/5)
Graphics (2/5)
Audio (3/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (5/10)

Based on the short length, it's more a proof of concept than a full game. But still an interesting idea nonetheless. Simply having the spaces cost made this basically an application of Dijkstra's algorithm, but with the right feature set and some well-designed puzzles, it could be entertaining.

Danmakuconomy - Bearman_18 (24/30)
Gameplay (3/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (4/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (7/10)

Definitely a neat game. I liked the idea of having tradeoffs between the different ship types, but honestly there was a clear hierarchy to me. The right-hand ship was way OP, and the middle one was way underpowered, so I just bought a ton of the right-hand ones (the green ones) and went to town. Still, fun game. I liked being able to upgrade them, and having the pseudorandom supply/demand curves was a neat touch. Just a small note, but my keyboard starting to have ghosting problems when I tried to move sideways and shoot at the same time, which was a bit unfortunate.

Date - Siolfor the Jackal (27/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (4/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (8/10)

A very well-executed game. Came expecting a dating sim, got... erm, quite the ending. Pretty basic gameplay but the ambiance and general feel of the game more than make up for it. The title screen was a nice touch: having the demon pop up only after beating the game. I also noticed, and I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, that he is sort of there when you first start the game but fades quickly.

Debtman - Käsityökerho (28/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (4/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (9/10)

This was quite well-executed. When it comes down to it, it's really just a simple top-down shooter, but the simplistic art style, the smooth controls, and the very natural progression of difficulty made it a solid entry all around. I actually went and dug out an old USB gamepad from my closet, just out of curiosity, and I was not disappointed. Playing this with actual twin joysticks is really quite fun, and it gives you more control than just the four arrow keys. Well done.

Delivery Man - Xer0botXer0 (17/30)
Gameplay (2/5)
Graphics (4/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (0/5)
Opinion (6/10)

What is this sudden trend of having Luigi in our games? Last jam I participated in had a Luigi stand-in too. Anyway, I really couldn't figure out what the metric was here. I went to the different doors (on the world's slowest elevator, mind you) and knocked on them. The icons turned to "!", which I assume is good. But the numbers in the top-left corner were all going negative. So, like, I don't know if I was doing good or not.

Dino Arena - RefresherTowel (13/30)
Gameplay (1/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (0/5)
Theme (3/5)
Opinion (4/10)

A cool idea, but I never really got very far. There's only one attack, so I don't really see how it's possible to "conserve" stamina when there's no tradeoffs and you have to kill the enemies. Also, the plant monster things kept knocking me off the screen and softlocking the game.

Everybody Wants Your Pineapple - ceaselessly (15/30)
Gameplay (1/5)
Graphics (1/5)
Audio (3/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (5/10)

I respect the idea: lots of different power ups with different tradeoffs. Unfortunately, it didn't play well with the fast-paced nature of the game. The icons were simply not distinctive enough for me to be able to go into "okay, this blobface icon means I get health but the pineapple loses it. Should I take it?" every time I saw one, while also shooting everything that moves and constantly dragging the pineapple away from the walls of death. Which, also, I figured out I could do accidentally. The game never actually says you can use SHIFT to pick it up; fortunately I was button spamming near the pineapple at the time.

GMCity - Lukan (14/30)
Gameplay (2/5)
Graphics (3/5)
Audio (0/5)
Theme (4/5)
Opinion (5/10)

Unfortunately, this entry appears to be incomplete. Could've been a cool city-sim game. I don't know if there's content I missed, but I never seemed to get my population about 4, even after building a lot of each type of building. But hey, it looks like the games topic post says it incomplete.

Humpty - sp202, Solistix (11/30)
Gameplay (3/5)
Graphics (3/5)
Audio (0/5)
Theme (0/5)
Opinion (5/10)

There's such a thing as polycount for the sake of polycount. I think I'm playing as a penguin? Maybe? But like, if I have to switch into 30fps (which I did) to get the game to run, the resulting models should look absolutely spectacular in the end. They were really just abstract metallic blobs I couldn't make out. Also, maybe a compass rose was in order or something, because I kept tapping "left" to go the direction the game meant as "down". And half the time I'd hit "enter" and it wouldn't register, especially during combat, so I ended up accidentally spending HP on extra turns several times.

Inkletint Island - TEAM FLOB (29/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (9/10)

Solid and well-executed as ever. The ink trail changing color as it got closer to timing out was a nice touch. Some well-designed puzzles that managed to not feel repetitive even after having to do them several times. I liked that the different non-essential controls like muting and mapping were explained gradually by NPCs. All in all, very well done. On the short side but there's nothing wrong with that.

Mansion Mayhem - Team 70s (30/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (10/10)

There's a certain type of game that has a very addictive quality for me. And you all tricked me into playing the most elaborate idle game that I've ever seen. Seriously, the whole thing is grinding, and yet it's so addictive. There's literally a "grind against meaningless faceless mooks" button. And yet... Anyway, loved the escalation of the fights, loved the simplistic art style. Brilliant entry! I'll say I didn't end up using the special attacks much. Against everybody but Bob, the ordinary attacks (kick, purse, and "safety" punch) more than sufficed. Bob, though, really brought out the best of all the special attacks, which was nice. With maxed out stats, he was fun, because once you max everything out, you can stun him every turn with Boris, use Yvette to pump stamina through Boris' veins, and have Lawrence coin toss his health down to nothing. He literally never gets a chance to even attack, and it's wonderful.

May 31 - The M (15/30)
Gameplay (3/5)
Graphics (3/5)
Audio (0/5)
Theme (3/5)
Opinion (6/10)

This looked like it had a lot of potential, so I'm sad to see you didn't have time to realize it fully. With the right different types of units, I can see how this would be a really interesting tower-defense-style game. In its current state, it was a bit repetitive: spam infantry at crossroads and a wall in front of each. After the first two cities fell, that one chokehold city in the middle was pretty easy to defend. Still, like I said, fun idea.

McMurdo - SheepDragon Studios (11/30)
Gameplay (1/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (1/5)
Theme (0/5)
Opinion (4/10)

I wandered for a bit then got this
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_player:
draw_text_ext argument 1 incorrect type (string) expecting a Number (YYGF)
at gml_Script_draw_hud
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Script_draw_hud (line -1)
gml_Object_obj_player_Draw_64
Not sure where I was meant to be going but I'm reasonably sure that's not it.

My Eyes - Deadly Serious Media (29/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (4/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (10/10)

Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy... that's what this game is. Constant fear of losing every piece of progress you've made. And it was spectacular. I couldn't stop moving or I lost everything. But if I kept moving carelessly, I lost something anyway. Unfortunately, I didn't get to the end. I got to the section after the first area with round platforms. Very solid game.

Otherside - Gizmo199 (21/30)
Gameplay (3/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (5/5)
Theme (1/5)
Opinion (7/10)

A very beautiful game, most certainly. Unfortunately, it seems to have homed in on my least favorite types of quests: the escort mission, a very frustrating soccer minigame, and fetching a bunch of cows (which started giving me flashbacks to the sheep moons in Mario Odyssey *shudder*). So overall, as much as I love the visual appeal, the gameplay itself was somewhat frustrating for me.

Pay the Price - KPJ (16/30)
Gameplay (2/5)
Graphics (2/5)
Audio (4/5)
Theme (3/5)
Opinion (5/10)

I have to say, the "pay the price" aspect felt quite forced. When I think of "everything has a cost", I think of budgeting, and of debating how to spend my money. That's not how I ended up playing this game. This game plays like a straightforward platformer/shooter where you occasionally randomly run out of money and have to restart. There's no real way to "strategize" around the limited budget, because you have to shoot all the ground enemies, you have to jump, etc. I don't normally make a habit of spamming the jump button in other platformers, so I'm already reasonably frugal with all these things.

Phase Shifter - Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit (15/30)
Gameplay (2/5)
Graphics (2/5)
Audio (3/5)
Theme (3/5)
Opinion (5/10)

Neat idea. The timing on the shifts is very picky. Off by even a bit and you go flying through the ground. Basically, that meant I pretty much always jumped when I shifted, and between jumping, shifting, and combining the two, I didn't really end up shooting a lot as my mind was preoccupied with everything else. Which didn't actually affect me that much; you can pretty much jump over all of the enemies and their projectiles.

Plungy Mart Panic! - AnotherHero (18/30)
Gameplay (3/5)
Graphics (2/5)
Audio (2/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (6/10)

An interesting story, to say the least. I like the service-style gameplay, where you're satisfying requests to stay in like in a restaurant-sim or something. You can definitely cheese the shopping cart: if you can get it to spawn on top of you, it'll stick with you as you move either left or right, making collecting various things much easier.

Summer King - cat, var, let (27/30)
Gameplay (5/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (4/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (8/10)

Definitely a very enjoyable, if short, puzzle game. Something still confuses me, though. Sometimes the tree spaces (copse) would start producing $2 instead of $1, and I couldn't figure out why or when. The third puzzle seemed to hinge on that fact, which is odd. Still, I found my way to the end, but that little detail was alien to me.

The People Pleaser - Rui Rosario (10/30)
Gameplay (3/5)
Graphics (2/5)
Audio (0/5)
Theme (0/5)
Opinion (5/10)

Seemed to be a game of chance with a slight memory aspect. I like the idea, but there wasn't a lot of strategy or anything to it, and at least one (usually both) of them disliked me every time.

Worth of a Soul - Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox (19/30)
Gameplay (3/5)
Graphics (5/5)
Audio (0/5)
Theme (5/5)
Opinion (6/10)

More a proof of concept than a full game, based on the length. Still a cool idea, and I like that the game opens with the paperclip dialogue that you've been tantalizingly advertising in your Jam post since this all started.
 

sylvain_l

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

Debtman by Käsityökerho
Nice use of the theme. 1bit graphics do the job well. Overall an entertaining shump.

Otherside by Gizmo199
taking care of cows is the way to save my soul ^_^ ... didn't saw that one coming!

Date by Siolfor the Jackal
best ending date ever :D (didn't get first that the best ingredient to finish a game is a patato; shame on me !)

Best ofs:

Best use of THEME: Debtman by Käsityökerho
Best Concept: Otherside by Gizmo199
Best Presentation: Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
Best Story: A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  2. Otherside by Gizmo199
  3. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  4. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  5. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  6. Pay the Price by KPJ
  7. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  8. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  9. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  10. Breach by Lolslayer
  11. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  12. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  13. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  14. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  15. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  16. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  17. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
  18. May 31 by The M
  19. Coin Drop by Toque
  20. Summer King by cat, var, let
  21. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
  22. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  23. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  24. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  25. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  26. GMCity by Lukan
  27. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

Comments:

sorry comments are lacking and more often kinda negativ then positiv :( so read those at your own risk XD

Cost Puzzle by Bart

not very challenging

Date by Siolfor the Jackal

best ending date ever :D (didn't get first that the best ingredient to finish a game is a patato; shame on me !)

Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0

can't get out of the lift , wtf!?!?

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel

bugged. you can be kicked out of the screen (loose your fight? by being hit, and then well only way is to endless jump to get exhausted) make the game pretty unfun.

GMCity by Lukan

unfinished and buggy (construct menu only works if RMB on the town hall which mean you mostly don't see the road menu element. ).

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies

is it me, or mission 11 is impossible ?!

Humpty by sp202, Solistix

nice try cheater!

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB

nice atmosphere. Unfinished? Or did I miss a fruit?

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s

became repetitive after a while, so didn't tried to go to the 1M X_X

May 31 by The M

man I'm dumb; I only understood what I had to do when there was only the last city left XD

McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

sadly unplayable; just start and then a thing move and game always crash:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_player:

draw_text_ext argument 1 incorrect type (string) expecting a Number (YYGF)
at gml_Script_draw_hud
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Script_draw_hud (line -1)
gml_Object_obj_player_Draw_64

My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media

I'm really not a fan of those game where any fail means you restart at 0. Too punishing for my tastes.

Otherside by Gizmo199

taking care of cows is the way to save my soul ^_^ ... didn't saw that one coming!

Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero

lol I lost my cart (must be a bug)

Summer King by cat, var, let

3rd puzzle impossible ?

The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário

girls like me but I don't get why XP

Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox

I reached the end, but meh? no idea what was going on.
 
Reviews here. Take them with a grain of salt. All of these were pretty good given the time. Some of these were SO good given the time.


Reviews

Top 3:

Otherside by Gizmo199
So when is the release date? This one was pretty much a complete game from top to bottom. Nice work!

May 31 by The M
This is a really neat idea! Put this game on a big ole map on a table in a military tent and play the general managaing battles throughout the war! That's what it felt like. Has the potential to be a really unique resource management game!

Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
I was confused at first but I liked this as a method of story telling. The tone was perfect. I wish there was more time to see this fleshed out with more depth. Also, I don't like text games but this one held my attention with its delivery. No exposition, just enough vauge information to allow me to fill in the blanks.

Best ofs:

Best use of THEME: Pay the Price by KPJ
Best Concept: May 31 by The M
Best Presentation: Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
Best Story: Otherside by Gizmo199
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. Otherside by Gizmo199
  2. May 31 by The M
  3. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  4. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  5. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  6. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  7. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
  8. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  9. Coin Drop by Toque
  10. Summer King by cat, var, let
  11. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  12. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  13. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  14. Pay the Price by KPJ
  15. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
  16. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
  17. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  18. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  19. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  20. Breach by Lolslayer
  21. GMCity by Lukan
  22. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  23. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  24. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  25. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  26. Humpty by sp202, Solistix

Comments:

A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba

I mean, everything was great but it just wasn't my cup of tea so I don't know that I can speak to it. That being said, I very much recognize the quality of it.

Banana quest by 2Dspessman

Not sure what I just played but it had bananas.

Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha

Something about that no gun walk that I just love! Like he's doing finger guns while he walks. Love it!

Breach by Lolslayer

Pretty cool effects but not much game unfortunately.

Coin Drop by Toque

Fun physics game with some pretty entertaining visuals! Really enjoyed playing through this one.

Cost Puzzle by Bart

It was okay. Could have used a little extra something.

Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18

Love me a good bullet hell game! It was a tad bit wordy for me so I clicked through alot of important bits while trying to advance through some non-important bits. The gameplay was solid though!

Date by Siolfor the Jackal

Hands down best ending to a game ever! Great job!

Debtman by Käsityökerho

Liked this one. I only wish I had some indicator of where I was aiming. Being able to see the mouse or have the gun turn. Other than that it was a cool way of showing the increase in difficulty. :)

Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0

I did this all wrong I'm sure. I knocked on a few doors but didn't really know what to do.

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel

Not sure what happened. I turned invisible after a short time. Did I die? Whatever it was it looked nice.

Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly

It was okay. The difficulty ramped up a bit too much for me though as far as shooters go.

GMCity by Lukan

Had a difficult time seeing the menus. The game was super tiny.

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies

Pretty cool game. Didn't get far though.

Humpty by sp202, Solistix

Kinda like chess with health? I think with some more time a concept like this could be expanded into an interesting turnbased game.

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB

Pretty solid game. Really liked the mechanic and the dialogue!

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s

Pretty much nailed it from all the aspects of the challenge. Some more time to polish this title could make for a real solid game!

May 31 by The M

This is a really neat idea! Put this game on a big ole map on a table in a military tent and play the general managaing battles throughout the war! That's what it felt like. Has the potential to be a really unique resource management game!

McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

I was really into this at first, then I couldn't quite sort out what I was supposed to do. I may just be a bit dense. I loved the look and the feel but I just couldn't figure out how to play it.

Otherside by Gizmo199

So when is the release date? This one was pretty much a complete game from top to bottom. Nice work!

Pay the Price by KPJ

It was pretty good for a run and gun.

Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit

This was a neat take on the runner genre but the light/dark meters didn't seem to matter much. Every level I played allowed me to complete it without having to worry at all about budgeting.

Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero

This was pretty solid overall. Pretty good art and a soothing soundtrack. It was a bit tedious being only able to carry one item at a time.

Summer King by cat, var, let

Fun idea but I couldn't seem to get past the 3rd level. Might have something to do with me derp'n all over the simple math and future planning. :)

The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário

I did terribly. Honestly? I am the type of person who skips exposition so text games are not for me. I'm a poor judge in this instance. DOn't listen to anything I have to say on the matter. I scored 2! Lol!

Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox

I was confused at first but I liked this as a method of story telling. The tone was perfect. I wish there was more time to see this fleshed out with more depth. Also, I don't like text games but this one held my attention with it's delivery. No exposition, just enough vauge information to allow me to fill in the blanks.
 
Voting and Feedback post

Well done, guys. Had a great time this jam.

Hey there, so if I mentioned this note in your feedback, here's why:
GMS2 seems to default to disable fullscreen switching, which would be fine except your game uses a resolution height that's bigger than my usable screen space(My laptop only supports up to 1366x768). So combining my taskbar with the title bar of your window, I'm left with less than 768 to display your actual game content. Generally this isn't a big deal, there didn't seem to be much if any important in the bottom 60ish or so pixels of your games, so no loss. But it is still a wee bit annoying when a simple solution would be to just switch to fullscreen.
Anyway, for future reference, it would be pretty awesome if at the very least you took a second to check that enable fullscreen switching box at the very least.

Top 3:

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
This was really enjoyable. I didn't really expect a turn-based RPG here, but it worked out well.
Combat was very simple, and there was less emphasis on strategy as there was on making sure you upgrade stuff. That said, later in the game, you have to start being a bit more careful so it balances out which is great.
A good level of challenge throughout. The waves ended as a sort of hint to stop grinding and go fight the boss was a nice touch too. Speaking of bosses, they offered just the right balance of challenge too, I feel like each fight was a fight I barely won each time, and that's always the best in my opinion.
My only complaint(a nitpick at best) is that I would have preferred some simple keyboard controls instead of using the mouse.
Great sprites and overall art, love that 70s aesthetic too. Just a shame there wasn't a wee bit more animation, that would have really made this shine.
Oh and the enemy and boss design! Perfect.
Then there's the soundtrack. My glob, Micah, that was so sick. You really nailed that 70s style.
Really well made and presented.


H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
That last level was intimidating! But I got through it!
You never disappoint when it comes to fun little puzzle games. Very enjoyable.
Theme usage seemed a bit of a stretch at first, but the way it played into the mechanics later made it very fitting and interesting.
A good length and good balance of difficulty. The main mechanics were interesting by themselves. My only gripe there was I wasn't a fan of the controls being all mouse. I didn't enjoy looking at the player character, then over at the controls, click, then checking back with the player. Optional keyboard controls would have been a nice extra(a nitpick really).
I like the design of the ground tiles, nice and clean. The player sprite was cute but should have been a colour that contrasts better with the stage tiles. Grey on grey is a no-no.
Music was well chosen, fit with the mood of the game. The sound effects were basic but did their job.
You had a nice menu and screen space was used well in game, good design. Though the font seemed to have display issues, such as letters looking like parts are cut off.

***See note near top of post***

Otherside by Gizmo199
I wasn't feeling the theme usage at first, but the boss battle kinda works it in!
Gameplay was very sparse, but still a good fit for this kind of game in a jam. The soccer was a wee bit difficult, even with full stamina.
The boss fight was really clever, the variation was unexpected and fun. It really could have shone with a couple of extra quests to fuel it.
All the little effects were really nice too.
Great gamepad support too!

Best ofs:

Best use of THEME: H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
Best Concept: Otherside by Gizmo199
Best Presentation: Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
Best Story: Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
Best Music: Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s

Full ranking:

  1. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  2. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  3. Otherside by Gizmo199
  4. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  5. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  6. Coin Drop by Toque
  7. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  8. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  9. May 31 by The M
  10. Summer King by cat, var, let
  11. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  12. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  13. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  14. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  15. Pay the Price by KPJ
  16. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  17. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  18. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  19. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  20. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
  21. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
  22. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
  23. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  24. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  25. GMCity by Lukan
  26. Breach by Lolslayer

Comments:

A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba

Loved the aesthetic of this, and the concept, but not a fan of the execution.
I understand the idea here, but there was too little information given in-game, and too much reliance on randomness I feel.
You're told your soldiers have a salary that needs paying daily, but then you never define what constitutes a day and how much that salary is. Seems after a bit of play you eventually realise they are paid after every encounter, so I guess that means you get an encounter a day. But then I still have little idea what their salary is.
Then the upgrades. At first I couldn't tell what they were since the shop doesn't give any hints. Suddenly there are things for sale I don't recognise. Would have been helpful to let the user know what they were potentially upgrading(And on top of that, what benefits the upgrade bestows).
The combat was a little too simplistic, talking was just used for initiating bribes, and being a money management game, where resources are tight as it is, it was rarely(practically never) cost-effective to bribe anyone, so it seemed like a bit of a waste. And then having to tip soldiers for doing their jobs... they are already getting paid a salary :p
Would have been much better to have enemies drop *some* cash or rations or something, and the rewards you did get seemed to be calculated in a way that rewards you for having more money. I think I get what you were trying to do there, but it's not very much fun.
Now the art on the other hand, was great. I loved the colour palette and interface, reminded me of old text adventures which was great.
Good variety in enemy images(even if some were shared among enemies) and they looked great. Something about that title screen screamed "early 90s" at me. I loved it.
Music was fitting, but no credits or mention anywhere of who made it...

Banana quest by 2Dspessman

You sly dog. You got me with that ending.
I've never been a fan of any game that uses the mouse for player movement. This was even more annoying that usually in that regard. At first I thought the moving slowly to avoid the wavy movement was possibly unintended gameplay, but later levels seemed like they absolutely required it. I can't tell if you used precise hitboxes or not because my experience was inconsistent. Some things I thought I missed I actually hit, and vice versa.
Generally, the art was a bit uhhh... well it was there(Some messed up looking bananas, bro. Haha). Walls and level background could have used something...
I tried a second playthrough the *proper* way, but I gave up when it got to the last two levels. I'm just assuming you had a different ending!
To be honest, I may have ranked this way lower but the ending got me good, I enjoyed that part alone.

Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha

I like that you have an aesthetic you stick to with your jam games. Not really my thing but I still think it's neat.
Gameplay was super basic. Not much to say about it. And the theme inclusion seems more tacked on than anything.
Very simple enemies since they just run at you(Makes sense given it's zombies I suppose).
Could have used some more knockback or a bit more of an invulnerability phase to stop enemies just locking you in place and hurting you.
I feel like this didn't really need mouse controls given how horizontal this game was. There was only one section where enemies were elevated enough to justify needing to aim up a bit.
Beat the boss and then I ran off screen to oblivion...
Sprites were ok(Good rotation on the arms when aiming), but the backgrounds and tiles need better contrast. Often had a little difficulty knowing what was ground and what was background.
Some of the music was good, but the sounds were taken from Minecraft. I don't think you're supposed to use assets you can't get permission to use... Regardless, you didn't even attempt to credit anything anywhere.

Breach by Lolslayer

Seemed to be some video errors. Just weird colours spazzing out mostly.
Ssame deal with the lightweight version :(

Coin Drop by Toque

Very simple but well executed.
Good decision making any key drop coins.
Good use of the physics system, I appreciated the variety in level design. Wasn't expecting the variation which was nice.
Could have used a handful more levels, and the bonus level felt a bit weak.
The flying piggy bank was cute, simple animation is better than nothing. The background was a bit dull.

***See note near top of post***

Cost Puzzle by Bart

Very short and very simple.
It's a shame your other concepts didn't pan out, they sounded much more interesting.
The gameplay here was really uninspired and boring to be honest. But considering how last minute it was and how you made it so quickly, that itself a wee bit impressive.
The text was hard to read. White text on a light background is not ideal. A dark outline would have helped, or maybe even just black text instead.

Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18

An interesting but expected use of theme.
The economy stuff was an interesting addition, but I kinda hate numbers so this was a struggle to enjoy for me ^^' So I didn't really mess with the buy/sell part of the game. But I also wasn't able to progress far enough to really make use of it(Not that good at bullet hells).
The main sections were pretty standard bullet hell minus upgrades. I think it would have been neat to let you switch ships as you play, maybe for a small cost, but it just kinda sucked starting a level and having the absolute wrong ship for the situation.
I got up to a boss that just had waaaaaay too much health. I didn't even get a 3rd of it down...
Art was ok but inconsistent, big mismatch between the sprites and the backgrounds. But at the very least you can easily see what is happening most of the time so no big deal.
Wasn't really a fan of the main music(But I appreciated that it was made for the jam, so really well done, man), but there was one track during a boss fight that sounded pretty sick.
Kind of groaned after the tutorial when it mentioned using the mouse. At least it was only for that section, which makes sense(Still would have preferred keyboard controls or shortcuts for the management sections, but understandable during a jam).
Oh also, not a fan of the borderless window. There was no good way to quit the game. Especially when you bankrupt and the game just... hangs... continues on without letting you do anything.

Debtman by Käsityökerho

Surprisingly enjoyable.
Standard twin stick shooter, with a little bullet hell thrown in. It controlled really well(and thank you for the gamepad support, especially for this type of game!).
I enjoyed the way you integrated the theme a bit into the gameplay to a ridiculous level(moving adds to your debt? Heh). At first I was playing very sparingly, only shooting when I'm sure, but eventually that is not really an option, but let's be honest, it's way more fun to just let loose.
I enjoyed the difficulty progression being tied to your debt, and the bosses are regular debt intervals. Speaking of, the bosses themselves weren't overly complicated, but it worked well.
Super simple art style, did it's job, but could have been better. Enemy variation was good visually.
Very nice presentation, the text sections were nice and the HUD was nice and simple. Only issue was there was an overlap with the health and debt bar when the debt was high.

Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0

A wee bit too broken to play.
Not sure I fully understood the idea, and I wasn't able to complete it due to each attempt getting stuck in the elevator.
Maybe that Luigi was supposed to be a placeholder, but you really shouldn't use stuff you don't own.

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel

Great first impression, but the game itself was a bit of a letdown. Really needed some sound too.
Theme usage was a bit uninspired.
Combat could have used a bit more work, your hitbox seems to last much longer than it should and have longer reach than I expected. There was no real impact felt with hits.
Jumping could use some tweaking, I feel like the gravity felt inconsistent. You rise so fast and fall ok from a jump, but then walking off a platform felt way too floaty.
Enemy AI was basic but mostly worked. A bit wonky(Some of them attempted to walk where I was looking instead of towards me?). The enemies mostly seemed to only vary visually, didn't really offer much challenge.
BUGS. There's a big bug that seems to shoot you through the floor and out of the level after killing enemies towards the side of the arena. I had to restart like, 7 times. Then on my 3 consecutive win, it got me again.
The art was gorgeous, very lovely sprites, well animated(I loved the eye popping out on the dinosaurs, reminded me of EVO on SNES). And the backgrounds/level art were just as nice.

Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly

Cool idea(Difficult to play with a trackpad, but I didn't let that affect my decisions here).
Another pretty standard shooter, but adding the pineapple as something to protect was a nice interesting twist.
Seems the theme is used a bit in the powerups, which is kinda neat. Though I kept forgetting what the powerups did, I think the sprites for them weren't clear enough for me. Also, I accidentally grabbed two in a row, one drained my ammo, the other drained my stamina... Left me in quite the pickle...
Music was ok, cool that you made it.
Borderless window was a weird choice.
I feel like with this sort of clickyshooty mouse type game, you should always ENABLE FULLSCREEN! Nothing more annoying that accidentally clicking out and the window loses focus...

GMCity by Lukan

Had to search the forums to see if there was a point I was missing, sadly just unfinished.
I suck at city builders but I like them, kind of relaxing planning out a city.
The view size was a bit small, considering how big the drop menu is, and that it easily appears off-screen. So that was a little annoying.
Population didn't increase, and money didn't matter haha. I had negative monies in the end.

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies

That last level was intimidating! But I got through it!
You never disappoint when it comes to fun little puzzle games. Very enjoyable.
Theme usage seemed a bit of a stretch at first, but the way it played into the mechanics later made it very fitting and interesting.
A good length and good balance of difficulty. The main mechanics were interesting by themselves. My only gripe there was I wasn't a fan of the controls being all mouse. I didn't enjoy looking at the player character, then over at the controls, click, then checking back with the player. Optional keyboard controls would have been a nice extra(a nitpick really).
I like the design of the ground tiles, nice and clean. The player sprite was cute but should have been a colour that contrasts better with the stage tiles. Grey on grey is a no-no.
Music was well chosen, fit with the mood of the game. The sound effects were basic but did their job.
You had a nice menu and screen space was used well in game, good design. Though the font seemed to have display issues, such as letters looking like parts are cut off.

***See note near top of post***

Humpty by sp202, Solistix

Sorry, there's not a lot here to talk about. Very strange choice of models. Gameplay idea was super basic.
Super unfinished too, you can still move after you die(But I got a chuckle out of the cheater message).

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB

Very cute.
The main gimmick was sort of neat, but got old quick. I was a bit disappointed when I got killed by an offscreen trap in one section. It just peeked up through the bottom of the screen and kill me. But apart from that, the hazards seemed pretty fair and balanced. I wasn't personally a fan of having to respawn so many times, but at least the spawn point was centrally located.
The sprites were mostly pretty cute. I'm not sure but is there a word for that style of redrawing the same sprite slightly different for that jittery effect? I've seen it a bunch and never wondered that before.
Music fit the island theme pretty nicely.

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s

This was really enjoyable. I didn't really expect a turn-based RPG here, but it worked out well.
Combat was very simple, and there was less emphasis on strategy as there was on making sure you upgrade stuff. That said, later in the game, you have to start being a bit more careful so it balances out which is great.
A good level of challenge throughout. The waves ended as a sort of hint to stop grinding and go fight the boss was a nice touch too. Speaking of bosses, they offered just the right balance of challenge too, I feel like each fight was a fight I barely won each time, and that's always the best in my opinion.
My only complaint(a nitpick at best) is that I would have preferred some simple keyboard controls instead of using the mouse.
Great sprites and overall art, love that 70s aesthetic too. Just a shame there wasn't a wee bit more animation, that would have really made this shine.
Oh and the enemy and boss design! Perfect.
Then there's the soundtrack. My glob, Micah, that was so sick. You really nailed that 70s style.
Really well made and presented.

May 31 by The M

Even with the severe lack of extra units, this was still fun. I think I'd really enjoy a fully featured version with all the units and some better balance.
At first it seemed like your standard tower defence game. But the multiple fronts was an interesting touch. Well, it was until I just retreated to the chokepoint below and held the enemy there until they gave up.
Unit placement in the planning stage was a bit annoying because the unit's sprites were twice as big which looked so messy.
At a certain point it becomes easy to cheese it, so I had little trouble reaching the end of the game.

McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

Looks like a lot of work went into this, but it's let down by a few smaller issues.
Dig the game genre, but something about the movement felt off. Can't quite place what though.
Interacting with the shower prompts some message about not being tired... do you sleep in the shower? 🤣 :p
I liked how the wind direction affected your movement, but I feel like you could have lessened the effect a little.
I had a few attempts but 2 ended with random crashes are the rest all crashed when the monster got me, so I was unable to get far.
So, about the text boxes... firstly, text was too slow and with no way to speed it up or just skip the typewriter effect. That would have been managable if not for the awful grating sound that accompanies the text. Salt in the wound.
Just a shame I wasn't able to get far because there looks like there's something neat under all those little issues.
Oh, and unless there is something later on I missed, it doesn't appear to follow the theme in any real way which is also a shame.

My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media

Looked very promising and a decent use of theme.
Interesting mechanic, albeit very very simple. Once you got past the novelty, there really isn't much to it.
It controlled well enough, and had a good amount of weight to it.
Level design started off ok but then just seemed random and rushed. Then there didn't seem to be any end goal either.
The player sprite(including the body) looked really great, would have loved to have seen more art like that in the game instead of the empty flat colours in the rest of the game.
The voice acting was a neat touch, and the screaming amusing(a little grating after a while but that's unavoidable).

***See note near top of post***

Otherside by Gizmo199

I wasn't feeling the theme usage at first, but the boss battle kinda works it in!
Gameplay was very sparse, but still a good fit for this kind of game in a jam. The soccer was a wee bit difficult, even with full stamina.
The boss fight was really clever, the variation was unexpected and fun. It really could have shone with a couple of extra quests to fuel it.
All the little effects were really nice too.
Great gamepad support too!

Pay the Price by KPJ

Concept was super basic, and not overly challenging. I think you needed some better balancing after level one since I just jump around and shot like a maniac and still had plenty of cash leftover. Though, to be fair, I would have had less fun if I had to play more carefully(Buuuuut then what would be the point of the main mechanic?).
So yeah, theme felt a bit tacked on, but the platforming and shooting was done well. Except, the invisibilty seemed pointless?

***See note near top of post***

Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit

Incredibly short entry that somehow feels like it belongs in a previous jam.
That said, the idea is interesting enough. I tried shifting whilst running but that often got me killed, so it seemed the best option was to always be in the air before shifting.
Budgeting your light and dark meters didn't seem to matter all that much, the levels seemed varied enough that you were often constantly shifting anyway.
It was neat that your levels had alternate paths, expanding on that could have been even better.
Art was ok, and the shifting looked good.
Music was neat(Did you guys make it?), but it was a shame it restarts whenever the level restarts.
Not sure if this helps, but I often check if a song is playing before stopping and playing a song, so that even when the level ends, the music continues on. Handy when your levels can be so short.

Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero

Simple but a bit buggy, but nothing broken.
Nice simple controls, so there was no real learning curve. Very easy to get stuck in your cart by jumping on it, but it didn't break anything so that's a win haha.
I wasn't sure what was happening with the moving items at first. At first I stressed about finding the right things, but later I just grabbed whatever and headed to the checkout which seemed to work fine.
Too many stalls overlapped and the seeming randomness of the placements just seemed a bit annoying.
I loved the menu and general presentation, but it was jarring to go from super smooth menu and fonts to super blocky art in the main game.

Summer King by cat, var, let

Chill puzzle game, albeit a bit confusing in parts, and ridiculously short. I feel like these puzzle games thrive with more content.
Got to say, I really struggled with level 3. And to be honest, I still don't understand how I won...
Art and music were cute, added to that relaxing atmosphere.

The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário

Concept was solid but the execution was lacking.
First playthrough I went in blind(since there was no readme or any in-game info on how the game works), so it ended up being a very confusing session. Once I hunted down your game post, I had a better understanding at least.
Not much to say about any gameplay, since there really wasn't any. The supposed personality types aren't really indicated in any meaningful way so it just becomes half a guessing game which isn't much fun.
Then there are like, a handful of samey situations, of which the two responses often don't make it clear what you mean.
Complete lack of art was a bummer too, even just a simple background or two could have really spiced this up a little.
And no sound whatsoever. A generic tone for the text typewriter effect would have been neat, and some chill background music at the very least. Shame.

Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox

Loved the presentation and art, but didn't really dig the experience.
Had a few playthroughs to be sure, but I didn't notice any real differences with different choices. The concept is maybe just too over my head.
The art is gorgeous, loving that background. The overall presentation was really nice too.
No sound despite the credits mentioning music? That was a bummer.

***See note near top of post***
 

Bart

WiseBart
Reviews

Top 3:

Otherside by Gizmo199
Top 3 entry for sure!

Such an atmosphere this game has.
Everything is finished with a great attention to detail, from the background music nicely fading between areas to birds flying up, ...
Then ending with an impressive boss battle.

Definitely a candidate for best presentation

Did you use the Box2D physics?

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
Nice game!
I had a lot of fun playing this game, the puzzles require a bit of thinking, which is good
A good use of the theme
So many levels!
Nice background music and good sound effects
I think the graphics could be a bit more polished

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
A very nice entry
I had a lot of fun with this one
Nice funky background music, stereotypical characters, it's all there
Controls feel very smooth

The gameplay does get a bit repetitive after a while in my opinion

Clicking those "SOON" buttons takes away money. Is that intentional? :p

Best ofs:

Best use of THEME: Debtman by Käsityökerho
Best Concept: A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
Best Presentation: Otherside by Gizmo199
Best Story: Date by Siolfor the Jackal
Best Devlog: ...

Full ranking:

  1. Otherside by Gizmo199
  2. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  3. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  4. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  5. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  6. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  7. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  8. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  9. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  10. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  11. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  12. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  13. Coin Drop by Toque
  14. Pay the Price by KPJ
  15. May 31 by The M
  16. Summer King by cat, var, let
  17. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  18. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
  19. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  20. GMCity by Lukan
  21. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  22. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  23. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  24. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
  25. Breach by Lolslayer
  26. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

Comments:

A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba

I must say I like this game
A solid entry with nice graphics and good, fitting music and sound effects
It gets a bit repetitive after a while, though

Banana quest by 2Dspessman

Not a bad entry

The graphics are very basic
I do like the idea of the player wiggling/wobbling harder the further it is from the cursor

I don't really see a connection to the theme

There's something strangely satisfying to picking up the bananas

Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha

I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing here
You can walk but it's not clear how to shoot (if possible)
The mouse can also be used

I think the first background music is really a bit too repetitive
Graphics are pretty basic, but I must say I like how the player character's arms move

It's nice that you added support for 4 languages

There doesn't seem to be a way to restart the game when you get killed by the first zombie and don't get the gun
Ah wait, apparently it is possible to press R

While I could figure out most of the controls it'd have been interesting to include them somewhere in a readme or in the game itself

Breach by Lolslayer

This looks pretty nice based on the screenshot in the forum post
but I get something entirely different
Not sure what is happening

I'm having the same issue with the updated exe you shared.
Too bad. Would've loved to try this one out.

Coin Drop by Toque

Nice game, very entertaining
Graphics are good
I especially liked the sound effects

Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18

Love the title screen

Very good use of the theme

How do I get out of the bankrupt screen?

Date by Siolfor the Jackal

What an unexpected ending! Really didn't see that one coming.
Nice detail how the main characters are selected at random
Also, nice detail in the main menu. It makes me wonder: was it already there the first time I played the game?
Good use of the theme

Debtman by Käsityökerho

By far the only entry where literally everything has a cost => Best use of theme!

Basic graphics that work well
Too bad there is no background music

Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0

I like the concept behind this game. Everything does indeed have a cost.

Graphics are very basic. The Luigi sprite doesn't really fit in with the rest of the graphics.

Some odd things that I noticed:
* It seems like you can just keep on clicking on the (+) button in the top left to get more and more money
* Not sure what the yin-yang value is supposed to mean
* The elevator can get stuck, it seems, which is highly realistic but not a great addition to this game :). All floors except the ground floor are no longer accessible when this happens.

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel

Overall this looks like an okay entry. Did you make the graphics yourself?

No sound effects and music unfortunately

Hm, not sure what happened? The character just falls through a slope sometimes.

Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly

Ooh, a fun little game
Quite an original idea to protect "your" pineapple :p
Fancy background theme, I like it :)

GMCity by Lukan

Looks like a good start to a city building game
The graphics are a bit too basic; there's no way to make a distinction between certain building types

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies

Nice game!
I had a lot of fun playing this game, the puzzles require a bit of thinking, which is good
A good use of the theme
So many levels!
Nice background music and good sound effects
I think the graphics could be a bit more polished

Humpty by sp202, Solistix

This looks like some pretty advanced rendering, which is nice
The basic concept is good, but the game is very short

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB

A lovely little game with a great atmosphere
The characters are really nice
I like the concept behind this

A candidate for best presentation

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s

A very nice entry
I had a lot of fun with this one
Nice funky background music, stereotypical characters, it's all there
Browsing through the menus and characters' actions feels very smooth

The gameplay does get a bit repetitive after a while in my opinion

Clicking those "SOON" buttons early in the game takes away money. Is that intentional? :p

May 31 by The M

Pretty good graphics, the maps look like authentic city maps
No background music or sound effects unfortunately
I got stuck on day 5, didn't seem like I could start the day for some reason

McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios

There's a fatal error early in the game:

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_player:

draw_text_ext argument 1 incorrect type (string) expecting a Number (YYGF)
at gml_Script_draw_hud
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Script_draw_hud (line -1)
gml_Object_obj_player_Draw_64

Really too bad, since what I've seen from this game does look great.

My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media

Quite a unique take on the theme
I think the game is a bit too hard since you need to restart from the beginning when you die
Nicely presented with good background music
Nice voice acting (I think :) )

Otherside by Gizmo199

Top 3 entry for sure!

Such an atmosphere this game has.
Everything is finished with a great attention to detail, from the background music nicely fading between areas to birds flying up, ...
Then ending with an impressive boss battle.

Definitely a candidate for best presentation

Did you use the Box2D physics?

Pay the Price by KPJ

Candidate for best use of theme
Graphics are basic but the overall style is very nice
The music and sound effects are fitting
I think the game is a bit too easy, the budget in each level could've been a bit less

Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit

Ooh, hard game
Interesting, though

Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero

Definitely a candidate for best presentation! A very distinct style! Nice and colourful

I must say that, after a few tries, I'm not entirely sure what to do yet

Summer King by cat, var, let

Neat little concept
It took me a while to get the idea since it is not very clear when you are spending money and when you receive money when the turn ends
Graphics and music are good

The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário

Hm, what is this? :)
I'm not sure if I was supposed to please everyone or not

Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox

A pretty unique entry :)
I'm not sure if I made the right decisions here
The presentation is pretty good although I think some background music would've contributed a lot to the atmosphere
The chalk font is nice but it does seem to cause some issues with the blend colour
 
Last edited:

The M

Member
Reviews

Top 3:

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies

Debtman by Käsityökerho

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB



Best ofs:

Best use of THEME: My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
Best Concept: Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
Best Presentation: Debtman by Käsityökerho
Best Story: Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s

Full ranking:

  1. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  2. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  3. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  4. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  5. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  6. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  7. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  8. Summer King by cat, var, let
  9. Coin Drop by Toque
  10. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
  11. Otherside by Gizmo199
  12. Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
  13. Pay the Price by KPJ
  14. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  15. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  16. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  17. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  18. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  19. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
  20. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  21. Breach by Lolslayer
  22. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  23. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  24. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  25. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
  26. GMCity by Lukan

Comments:

A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
I like the premise of the game but it sure wasn't easy. You did a pretty good job explaining what things did but it was still hard to understand exactly how things you bought interacted with each other, which in turn made it hard to plan your actions. The graphics were great, though going full screen at that resolution is a bit of a stretch and I got fatigued after playing for a while. It was fun to try to outmaneuver enemies by taunting or talking to them. I wish enemies took more damage from your attacks as hitting for one or two points of damage wasn't very satisfying, especially when I had bought a few extra soldiers and expected a difference.

Banana quest by 2Dspessman
I feel the premise of the game should be explained before it started because I had no idea whether to collect the bananas or not. The levels were interesting with the very unorthodox movement of the player which was fun in the beginning but got frustrating in the later levels as you had to navigate minimal gaps at slow speed to get through. The blur effect of the arcade machines was neat and the ending twist was fun.

Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
The game was neat. It's very straightforward, but I still like the inclusion of arrows and view panning that makes it easy to know what to do and what to expect. The latter is nice, since you have limited resources it's great to be able to plan ahead. I guess you won when you made it out to the city.

Breach by Lolslayer
The 3D visuals are neat, and the lighting effects are cool. The game is incredibly dark, though, and that detracts from the experience as it made enemies too hard to see.

The various weapons are fun but not game changing and the game on a whole is pretty basic. I once accidentally stood on the enemy spawn point and was killed immediately by the spawning enemies, so the gameplay is a bit rough.

All in all, it's cool but the novelty quickly wears off with the lack of gameplay depth. Oh, and you made me look up flowmap pathfinding. Neat!

Coin Drop by Toque
It's an absurd game but it's actually pretty entertaining. The trajectory of the coins was not what I had expected and it made the game much more challenging, but I liked that. The levels were good, except for the last one which was way too unfair (especially since I almost made it). I'm glad I didn't have to start over from the beginning though.

Cost Puzzle by Bart
It's short but a neat idea. I feel like the game has some unused potential as you could make larger grids to find a path through, but I'm not sure if it'd be fun or tedious. I like the colors and background which is pleasantly relaxing. It is a bit hard to tell foreground and background apart, especially the text could use a solid black outline to be easier to see and read.

Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
At first I couldn't understand how to leave the shop screen so I thought the game just wasn't finished beyond that point and quit. Fortunately, I looked up peoples' reviews on the forum and saw that people generally liked the game so I jumped back in and gave it another shot. It made me realize I really want to be able to skip/fast forward the tutorial but still, I'm glad I came back.

I think making a good shmup is hard, but you did a good job balancing the game and it was enjoyable. I liked the economy aspect of buying and selling ships but (un?)fortunately the ship I went with never really increased in value and since I'd upgraded it to the max I had no reason to ever buy any other type of ship.

Unfortunately, it all ended anticlimactically as I quit in frustration against the boss. I had picked the green ship and it turned out the massive level 3 laser beam was drawn on top of enemy bullets, which meant I couldn't attack and dodge at the same time. It felt incredibly unfair because I could easily have won if I'd had any other ship.

Date by Siolfor the Jackal
The game looks nice and the premise is straightforward enough. The floaty movement felt a bit weird to me and I wish you could move a bit faster since that's all you do. It also felt a bit bad to not be able to pick up items from the ground, at least to trade with the one you were currently carrying, because you knew you needed it but couldn't have it yet. The twisted ending twist came as a big surprise!

Debtman by Käsityökerho
The game is very polished and feels great to play. Your attacks have a very satisfying chunkiness to them as you can one-shot most enemies and they look and sound powerful. I liked the diversity to enemies and fines but wish it scaled a little further as somewhere around level 10 it just repeated itself with new names for the debt collectors but nothing different in gameplay.

Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
It's an interesting concept but unfortunately, the elevator breaks it. The problem is that it's so incredibly slow that there's not enough time to check out the higher level floors and make it down and back up again. It also had a tendency to stop between floors, making it impossible to get off anywhere other than on the ground floor. Because of this I just stayed on the street and waited for those doors to become available which honestly wasn't very fun. I can see the potential but I think it'd be better if the elevator was near instant instead.

Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
I love the art style and there's a lot of graphics in the game which is very ambitious. There's not as much to see when it comes to gameplay as it quickly gets stale, though the platforming physics work very well. I found that getting hit on the ground caused you to clip through the floor, essentially resulting in an instant game over which was frustrating. With some more arenas and a little more interesting and engaging enemy AI, I could see the game being really fun.

Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
The dynamics of taking care of the pineapple was very interesting and made the game completely different from what it otherwise would have been. I think there was a good balance between having to gun down enemies and carry away the pineapple and it kept me on my toes. I wasn't a fan of the power-ups as the penalty of picking one up was almost always too harsh to be worth it. Sure, they can have a tradeoff but in my opinion it was too severe, and I mostly avoided them if I could. I also had a bit of trouble recognizing the different abilities which made them even less reliable. If I were to suggest an improvement, I'd say it'd be adding some tactile progression. Right now, you only try to survive for as long as possible and while it certainly got harder, surviving longer didn't add much variety. I will say, having kills increase the spread of the gun was really satisfying when you managed to rack up a bit of a combo.

GMCity by Lukan
It's a nice start but there's not enough buildings and progression to make it interesting. It'd be nice to be able to place multiple building (and especially road pieces) at once.

H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
I find it impressive how many mechanics you manage to squeeze out from a single concept: it's fun, it keeps things exciting and it makes it so that you can keep the difficulty relatively low throughout most of the game. Really, it was only the final level where you went all out on the difficulty, which was nice because I couldn't have taken 25 levels of that.

The game is polished and does a lot to make it easier to understand the levels, such as highlighting where a move would take you and allowing you to rewind freely. At times though, I had to rely on guesses on where to go because you had to plan too many steps in advance for me to easily see where I would end up. Thankfully the aforementioned rewind function made that relatively painless. In the end, my only real complaint is that the levels weren't aligned in a hex-grid pattern on the level select screen, but I can live with that immersion breaker.

Humpty by sp202, Solistix
This game is a really weird looking one but it's kind of cool. I really like the jump-and-drop animation when you move between tiles. I thought the gameplay was alright but not very interesting. I quickly realized the best thing you could do was spend a quarter of a heart to take an extra step and stay ahead of all the enemies, or to wait for them to draw close and double tap them to death.

Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
It's a calming and lighthearted game which is delightful to play, at least until the spikes started appearing. I liked how you expanded how far you could explore with each fruit you found and the colored trail you left behind was neat. I think the mines could have been better placed, especially in screen transitions where you could die almost immediately if you entered in the wrong place at the wrong time, but thanks to the quick respawn time it wasn't that much of an issue.

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
I enjoyed the game and had a lot of fun playing. While the combat is simple, it works so smoothly it's satisfying to watch. The game feels very polished and complete, with balanced gameplay and excellent music and graphics. I like how each character have slightly different stats and roles to play.

There were a few annoyances that came up while I played: first, dying resets all your progress. Since you spend several minutes fighting it's a harsh penalty, especially when you don't know what you'll face next and can't really plan for it. For example, three enemies is a big difference compared to two. I'd rather see you gain some cash, maybe half of what you've earned, and have the rest lost as a medical bill.

My second issue is that you only have one attack worth performing throughout most of the game. In my experience, the special attacks were only really useful against the final boss because it had massive defense and extremely powerful attacks. Against normal enemies, it's cheaper and more effective to just attack normally, which gets a bit tedious by the end of the game.

McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
Well, wow. The game crashed when the monster thing attacked me through the wall in the starting room but when I started the game again I got a bit further. I managed to restart the generator but was killed when I tried walking back. I think the game has a lot of atmosphere and it was honestly pretty spooky. I didn't expect there to be much content considering the early crash, so it outdid my expectations and surprised me with how much there was to it. I didn't explore much out of fear of drawing the monster, but I was still impressed with how much details there were to the rooms and buildings. One thing I'd like to see next time is the ability to quickly advance dialogue because it was incredibly slow which made it less fun to interact with things than it otherwise should have been.

My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
I love that the game is absolutely absurd but still just works. It took me little while to understand how the game worked and how the two meters interacted but after that it was a fun climb. I do miss checkpoints, though, as having to restart from the beginning if you failed was harsh. What's more, even though I made it up, I was thrown down again when I tried to reattach the head and had to do the loop once more. Then when I got up the second time, the same thing happened again and I had enough. I don't know if there is an ending or not but that felt really unfair.

Otherside by Gizmo199
The game has a strong theme and atmosphere. The many smooth animations and transitions make the game feel very polished and made it fun to play. I felt there was a bit too much walking around and though the chores were varied, they were more work than fun. The boss was really cool and it had a lot of different attack patterns. Unfortunately, it was just too hard to hurt as the opportunities to do so were so rare. This made the battle really dragged out and made me lose some health in attempts to find other way to hurt it (like trying to walk into the hat). I died before the boss did so I never got to see the ending because I just didn't want to sit through it all again.

Pay the Price by KPJ
It's short and pretty fun. It was interesting to have to balance the cost of your actions but it only really meant I was a bit more careful with how much I shot. It was a bit hard to gauge if anti-air attacks and invisibility was worth using because I didn't know their cost. I ended up using the anti-air in the final level because it was a convenient way to take out multiple enemies which was great. I only used invisibility once, accidentally, and was confused about where I was. It was a bit too many abilities and keys to memorize at once I think. Finally, given the upbeat music and fast pace of the game, I'd like to see some incentive to beat the level fast (maybe your cash slowly ticks down over time or maybe there's just a clock tracking your time) because I felt the way I played (waiting for enemies to get within range and shooting them down before continuing) didn't really fit that tempo. Of course, the flying enemies fill this role to an extent so I don't think there needs to be a harsh time restriction.

Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
It took me a few attempts to get used to the controls but then I started to enjoy blazing through the levels. While I liked the idea of having two energy bars, it didn't feel like they meant anything as the biggest obstacle was making sure you didn't fall through the floor. The levels also ended very quickly which meant you could be careless with your energy since it refilled at the next level. I think it'd be a little more interesting if you made the energy of the side not currently active recharge over time. If you combined it with floor segments that would be solid regardless of which energy you were using, there could be some interesting tactics with it.

Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
It seemed interesting but I couldn't get it to work. I brought the items requested but I only ever got one completed request. I'm also not sure how to handle requests with four items since you could only have three in your card and carrying the fourth in your hands didn't seem to work.

Summer King by cat, var, let
It's clever and calming, it's just a shame there aren't more levels. I liked the gameplay concept and it was well executed on for the stages that existed. The UI was pretty good but some tiles, like the pond which improves adjacent tiles, could use an explanation that shows this effect. The floating islands were beautifully drawn, though I kind of wish I could rotate the view to easier see the tiles behind. It's interesting that you can pan the screen as that's never necessary for any of the puzzles.

The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
I didn't understand this game. I assumed I was supposed to choose the answer I thought would make the person I'm talking to happy, but the choices seem arbitrary and the dialogue repeats itself with the same people asking mostly the same questions. I seem to be ranked by how good I answered but, again, don't see how to affect that score. There also doesn't seem to be any new orders for me.

Worth of a Soul by Shadow_Lancer, Cowsox
It's a cool concept and the graphics great but the game lacks depth. I played through it a few times looking for different outcomes, and while there were some alternatives, what you did didn't feel like it mattered all that much. With that said, for a quick burst it was fun and the presentation is stellar.
 
Top 3:

1st:
Date, @Siolfor the Jackal: Quick and breezy, like a GMC game should be to me. Didn't waste any of my time, and it was fun and pleasant. Made me laugh. That ending. =')
2nd: Danmakuconomy, @Bearman_18: Had fun with this, too. Also didn't waste any time getting to the gameplay. Solid little shooter, and I liked the way the theme was worked in.
3rd: Humpty, @sp202: It was weird and horrifying looking. Cool, lol.

4th: Dino Arena, @RefresherTowel: Very cute. =)
5th: Mc Murdo, @SheepDragon Studios: A lot of work in this one. Good stuff!

Best Story: Date, @Siolfor the Jackal
Best use of theme: Danmakuconomy, @Bearman_18
Best presentation: Mc Murdo, @SheepDragon Studios
 
Hey look some voting thingies!

Top 3
Otherside
by Gizmo199
Really liked the vibe of this one. Music was great and I enjoyed the little stories.

Date by Siolfor the Jackal
Short and simple, really liked the style and humour. Nothing ominious going on here!

Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
This is the sort of game I can play for ages. I found out early you can still buy the "Soon" abilities right at the start >.>;

Full ranking:
  1. Otherside by Gizmo199
  2. Date by Siolfor the Jackal
  3. Mansion Mayhem by Team 70s
  4. Summer King by cat, var, let
  5. Inkletint Island by TEAM FLOB
  6. Danmakuconomy by Bearman_18
  7. H.E.X.A.G.O.N. by Mercerenies
  8. Coin Drop by Toque
  9. May 31 by The M
  10. My Eyes by Deadly Serious Media
  11. McMurdo by SheepDragon Studios
  12. Cost Puzzle by Bart
  13. Everybody Wants Your Pineapple by ceaselessly
  14. Pay the Price by KPJ
  15. Dino Arena by RefresherTowel
  16. Plungy Mart Panic! by AnotherHero
  17. Phase Shifter by Curato, JacktheBlindRabbit
  18. GMCity by Lukan
  19. Delivery Man by Xer0botXer0
  20. A Noble's Quest by Endercurse, ImTheBanana, OpperTobba
  21. Humpty by sp202, Solistix
  22. Debtman by Käsityökerho
  23. Banana quest by 2Dspessman
  24. The People Pleaser by Rui Rosário
  25. Baserisk by TheMiningBoyAlpha
 
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